Chelsea boss Thomas Tuchel admits deliberately holding back Christian Pulisic in recent weeks.
Pulisic proved the matchwinner today against West Ham, with Tuchel conceding they'd be concerned about his energy levels.
Tuchel, on resting him, said, "If you asked him, he would say it was not a good idea. It is like this, especially with the strikers. He had a period when he was on a run, had the confidence, was heavily involved upfront and Timo (Werner) had to wait for many, many weeks. Now things turned around a little bit from the Southampton game.
"Puli struggled a little bit since coming back from the international break where he had three matches, an incredible amount of joineries and timezones to cope with. From there, he struggled energy-wise. This was my impression, on and off the pitch. It's sometimes like this.
"Now we have tried to bring him back in full confidence from the bench, and I am happy with the effort today, and I am happy he had the chance to have this big impact with Romelu and Hakim. It was super important."
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