Christian Pulisic transfer can green light cheap $20m Chelsea experiment

The Blues will need to fund a loan experiment over the summer and selling Christian Pulisic is an easy way to achieve it
Chelsea’s goalscoring problem has barely gone away despite putting three past Bournemouth and securing their Premier League status. That sentence alone indicates how awful their finishing has been because, on the whole, it has been a conviction and quality issue.

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When it comes to predicted goals, a trustworthy enough metric across 34 games, Chelsea has scored 12 goals less than they would have been expected to. That would move them from being fourth lowest scorers to at least mid-table.
It is still far from good enough but the finishing issue has been a longstanding concern for the continually underperforming attackers. It has been the difference between a frankly dreadful season one that was nonetheless poor but not record-shattering.
Their loss of 12 goals by this metric is the greatest across the league both positive and negative. They have accrued roughly seven points fewer than they might have. That would at least put them in ninth and within reach of the Europa League.
To enhance their results in front of goal the team turned to Joao Felix. On a six-month loan contract, he cost roughly £2m per month. The £11m amount paid to Atletico Madrid is more than Chelsea received for Romelu Lukaku from Inter Milan and he was there for a complete season.
The efficiency of this can be argued at length. The 23-year-old has the greatest goals per 90 out of any player in the club this season. After his second-half strike against Bournemouth, just two players have more in the league than his three.
It was for the unreasonable ambition of winning the Champions League that he was signed but whether he has genuinely enhanced the club in that sense or not is far from evident. He has just 0.5xA (anticipated assists) in ten starts, for example.
He has shown glimpses of the great talent seen at the World Cup, though. It is the what-if surrounds Felix that makes him such an intriguing player. Chelsea will need more than that, though and rumors suggest that they are far from persuaded he is worth the $110.9m (£88m) price tag Atletico Madrid placed on him.
The Evening Standard adds that instead of paying the whole fee, Chelsea might accept another loan to land the attacker for another season, this time paying $20m (£16m) for the year. Given the financial pressure, the need to clear out a plethora of failed players throughout the field, and attacking uncertainty for Felix, it is a transaction that will need money somehow.
That could come from a simpler source than was first clear. Chelsea is not just aiming to move Hakim Ziyech from the frontline but would also welcome bids for Kai Havertz and Raheem Sterling. Callum Hudson-Odoi is believed to be available for trade, as is Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang.
Not all of those are as easily sellable as Christian Pulisic. The 24-year-old has top-level experience and proof of form patches to match some of the worldwide stars, too. As the face of USMNT football, he is also a tremendously marketable player. The good thing for Chelsea and Pulisic is that it won’t take all that much to accomplish an amicable divorce.
With just one year left on his contract, Pulisic has about fully earned his book value at Chelsea. This ultimately means that when it comes to finances being filed, Chelsea only has $15.1m (£12m) in worth to get from Pulisic. He is, despite his position at Chelsea, worth at least double that and then some.

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What it does mean is that Chelsea shouldn’t find themselves in a position whereby they are waiting for a decent offer for Pulisic. It’s a predicament they have been left waiting in too many times before and Todd Boehly has so far already proved that he can put pride to one side and sell for a middling offer.
If the same happens with Pulisic then it makes the loan price easier to bear for Felix and allows everyone to advance.