Chelsea: Three players to bring us out of the break and thinking Blue again

Few things are as stimulating as the first match after an international break, even if it is against 16th place Newcastle. Here are a few players to have in mind as we get back into Chelsea mode after the dross of Euro 2020 qualifiers.

Fortnite being down for two days had nothing on the fortnight of the October international break. Chelsea host Newcastle on Saturday to kick off this next block of Blues football.

1. Olivier Giroud

Olivier Giroud scored two goals for France: a game-winning penalty against Iceland and the opener against Turkey. He has scored three goals for France since his last goal for Chelsea, coming in the UEFA Super Cup against Liverpool, which is little surprise as he is on the Ethan Ampadu program of having more minutes for country than club so far this season.

While on international duty, Giroud was the subject of a round of transfer rumours. He was linked to a handful of destinations in Major League Soccer, because that’s what happens to top Premier League players over the age of 30. He was also in the mix for a move to Inter Milan, because that, too, is apparently what happens to top Premier League players over the age of 30.

Giroud is worldly and realistic enough to know that until Tammy Abraham falls of his goalscoring form, neither he nor Michy Batshuayi will have too many minutes. Batshuayi’s only start came in the League Cup against Grimsby Town, and with the next round’s opponent being Manchester United, Lampard may favour Abraham in the third competition. Unless Giroud can work his way into a substitute appearance in the Premier League or Champions League and then make a definitive impact on the outcome – or at the very least show no diminution of his skills – he will remain in third place on the depth chart.

Giroud may have expected more level competition amongst the strikers coming into the season. Even those who were confident in Tammy Abraham’s readiness for the Premier League did not foresee his current form.

Giroud has been on every side of this situation. He’ll know that patience and effort are the only ways his prospects will improve, and that a transfer will probably not bring him the satisfaction he is seeking at Chelsea (at least not in January).

2. Christian Pulisic

The US Men’s National Team reached Sunderland status with their loss to Canada on Tuesday. The images of Christian Pulisic as he came off the pitch poured gasoline on the narratives about his career being in tail spin, his being overrated because of his nationality, Chelsea’s mistake in buying him and other such drivel.

Quick question: Who leads Chelsea in assists this season? Yep, American washout overpriced less-filling-than-a-Hershey-bar failure Christian Pulisic.

Pulisic has four assists in all competitions and is one of four players with two assists in the Premier League. Pulisic has done this on 451 total minutes and 287 Premier League minutes. Only Callum Hudson-Odoi has a better rate of minutes per assist. By contrast, Jorginho would need to play over 20,000 minutes – over four seasons in four competitions, or about six league campaigns -to reach four assists at his current rate for Chelsea (you had to have to seen that coming).

Chelsea did not buy Christian Pulisic as the replacement for Eden Hazard, but Pulisic plays a similar role for the US team as Hazard plays for Chelsea: even when everything else has gone down the drain, he’s the player you always suspect might just make something magical happen and turn things around.

But the US team is currently in a chronic state far worse than anything Chelsea experienced in 2015/16. Pulisic is not the problem. Nor is his citizenship or some aspect of his play Frank Lampard’s problem. At worse, Pulisic is in a slump that was compounded by having to report for international duty to a team that would need to improve just to get into a slump.

Chelsea is the right place for him short-term and long-term. The dire proclamations from anonymous idiots and influential broadcasters alike are nothing more than banter bait.

3. Billy Gilmour

N’Golo Kante reinjured himself while training with France and did not take part in either game. His health and fitness are as uncertain as they have been since the early May game against Watford.

With Kante becoming a long-term question mark, Antonio Rudiger and Ruben Loftus-Cheek still some time away from returning, Mateo Kovacic and Andreas Christensen injured over the break and Reece James still on the path to full fitness before finding a long-term place in the side, Chelsea need to re-examine their structure on defence and transition to defence if they want to avoid slipping back into their early season porosity.

If James is healthy, Cesar Azpilicueta is one option to shore up defensive midfield to protect a thin back-line. But Frank Lampard may need Azpilicueta on the back-line.

Lampard may have to consider accelerating Billy Gilmour’s accession to the first team to cover the space between midfield and defence. Even though it was against Grimsby Town, Gilmour has shown the best potential to protect the centrebacks from whatever gets through the rest of the defence, which means he would be the best person to minimize the amount that gets through. He also showed promising abilities to bring the ball out from the defence, combining dribbling and passing skills with the awareness and intelligence to decide when to do either.

Without Kante and Kovacic, Chelsea will be without their two best midfielders for breaking up plays before they become a problem and cleaning up things after they do.

If not Billy Gilmour, the best alternative to a Jorginho – Ross Barkley double-pivot screening a Kurt Zouma – Fikayo Tomori back-line would simply be Frank Lampard suiting up as Chelsea’s first player-manager of the Roman Abramovich era (at least until the Blues get a waiver to re-sign Mikel John Obi in January despite the ban).