Focus on Christian Pulisic as his hat-trick earns Chelsea win

Chelsea winger Christian Pulisic was handed his first Premier League start since August as the Blues took on Burnley at Turf Moor.

The £58million signing came in for the benched Callum Hudson-Odoi, three days on from coming off the bench to set up Michy Batshuayi’s winner in the 1-0 Champions League victory at Ajax.

Here, the PA news agency looks at how Pulisic fared as Chelsea triumphed 4-2 against the Clarets.

Goal threat

Having already looked lively in the contest, Pulisic registered the first competitive goal of his Chelsea career in the 21st minute when he pounced on Matthew Lowton losing possession just inside the Burnley half.

The United States international burst into the box, producing a step-over as James Tarkowski tried to put him under pressure, before shooting low into the corner of the net.

He was denied a second seven minutes later as his deflected strike was kept out by Nick Pope and had a subsequent effort blocked by Tarkowski before making it 2-0 in the 45th minute. Pulisic picked the ball up in a similar position as for the first goal, advanced towards the box again and past Tarkowski, and saw his shot go in via a deflection off Ben Mee.

The 21-year-old then completed his hat-trick 11 minutes after the break as he connected with Mason Mount’s cross to send the ball in off the back of his head and put Chelsea 3-0 up.

Creativity

Prior to his first goal, Pulisic produced a decent run as he cut inside from the left flank and laid the ball off to Mount, whose shot was blocked, and shortly before his second he nicely teed up chances for Tammy Abraham and Willian.

In the 68th minute good work on the right from the American ended with a cross aimed towards Abraham, who was unable to finish.

Overall

A hat-trick scored with his left foot, his right foot and his head, and a good deal of quality shown besides – this outing could hardly have gone better for Pulisic as he richly rewarded boss Frank Lampard’s decision to promote him to the starting line-up.