Pulisic unlucky to miss out as Thomas Tuchel’s selection of Ziyech and Werner backfires

Thomas Tuchel has got so much right tactically that it always seems churlish to criticise things that go wrong.

Indeed, if the ball bounces a little differently yesterday, Chelsea could walk away with a pretty easy win over Manchester United, who threatened little beyond their goal, which came from a fairly freakish mistake.

But frustrated fans leaving the game are always looking for reasons why their team weren’t able to win, and in this case several of their beloved manager’s decisions were questioned.

Timo Werner and Hakim Ziyech picked up a lot of the blame, perhaps not surprisingly given their team dominated the game without managing to score from open play. Those two – along with Callum Hudson-Odoi – are the attacking parts of the team, and will inevitably get the blame if the team fails to put the ball in the net.

Werner looked rusty on his return from injury, and all too often drifted out to the left wing to find the ball. That left a space up top, with none of his teammates moving into the space to fill it. From early in the game, frustration was evident at Stamford Bridge at the lack of a blue shirt to aim for in the box.

Ziyech was involved a lot in the final third, but frustrated his teammates and the fans as he so often does. In a game where plenty of other players in the team were guilty of not taking enough risks, the Moroccan took too many, with little return.

Christian Pulisic, even playing from right wing back, offered more to the team in his cameo, and one can’t help but be left feeling he might have done better in place of Werner or of Ziyech.

Of course we would have played better with Romelu Lukaku, Ben Chilwell or N’Golo Kante in the team, but Tuchel had no choice there. His decisions in the front three however, he has to own.