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Do NOT buy your Pulisic No.24 Chelsea shirts just yet

May not be his “real” number

Chelsea Pre-Season Tour to Japan - Day 3 Photo by Darren Walsh/Chelsea FC via Getty Images

Christian Pulisic made his first appearance in a Chelsea shirt today, sitting on the bench to start the game against Kawasaki Frontale. The immediate question that followed the announcements of the lineups — as has been asked a million times since his official arrival earlier this summer — was what shirt number was he wearing.

Turns out he was in Gary Cahill’s old number, the No.24 shirt.

BUT.

Chelsea went out of their way to remind everyone that preseason numbers, like the preseason games themselves, are not quite the real things.

(And that applies to all the players, not just Pulisic, such as Mason Mount’s No.19 shirt.)

The eventual question of course will be whether it’s Callum Hudson-Odoi or Christian Pulisic who inherits Eden Hazard’s old No.10. It may or may not be reserved for the former’s new contract.

To find out that answer and all the other shirt number-related things, we’ll have to wait a bit longer it seems.

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