Christian Pulisic has said he is open to moving to the Premier League, with Chelsea understood to be leading the race to sign the forward from Borussia Dortmund next summer.

The USA international is expected to face his clubmate Jadon Sancho at Wembley on Thursday having been left out of the Dortmund side that beat Bayern Munich on Saturday in favour of the 18-year-old Englishman.

Pulisic has been linked to several Premier League sides including Liverpool and Tottenham in the past but it is understood that Chelsea have shown most interest in prising him away from the Bundesliga leaders.

The 20-year-old – who spent a year in Oxfordshire as a child before moving back to the United States with his family – has so far refused to discuss a contract extension at Dortmund and with his deal set to expire in 2020, there is a growing possibility Pulisic could be allowed to leave.

“England, the Premier League, is a league where lots of kids dream of playing so there is no reason why maybe one day I won’t play here,” he said. “As you can see, we are having a great year at Dortmund and I am enjoying every moment of that. Then when the time comes for me to talk in the breaks about my future, then that’s when those things happen.

“Like I said before, reading these articles [about me], I tend to stay away from that stuff. I know it is going to be there but it is not my priority.”

Pulisic, who joined Dortmund as a 16-year-old, has been restricted to four league starts this season because of Sancho’s emergence. The former Manchester City forward’s success has also led the German club to express interest in signing his former England Under-17 teammate Callum Hudson-Odoi as a potential replacement for Pulisic. The 18-year-old could be allowed to leave Chelsea on loan in January having had limited first-team opportunities.

Pulisic has missed seven of the USA’s past eight friendlies after being allowed the summer off but is looking forward to facing his “good friend” Sancho. “I went through the exact same things as him and whenever he is going through a tough time he knows he can talk to me. It’s a cool relationship that we have. The sky is the limit for a player like him – you can see how much talent he has.”

Pulisic, born in Hershey in Pennsylvania, moved to Tackley aged seven and played for Brackley Town’s youth team before returning to the US and he said that experience has had a huge influence on his career.

“I was very young but I remember going to school every day, which I didn’t enjoy,” he remembered. “As soon as the bell would ring I would go out and would be on the hardcourt pitches outside for hours and my parents had to drag me home. I was a little bit nervous about coming to England at first with ‘soccer’ and everything but I missed that culture where everyone wanted to play after school. When I came back to the US no-one really wanted to play soccer with me so it’s different.”