Mykhailo Mudryk joined Chelsea in January 2023 after we decided to hijack his move to Arsenal in the final hours.
There was a massive hype with his arrival and the club pushed out a lot of briefings about how highly they rated the winger. The unveiling at Stamford Bridge I just found as odd. He wasn’t yet that guy. Maybe he would become that guy, but he wasn’t when we signed him. Pedro Neto unveiling, yes, but Mudryk was not there. The over hype just didn’t help things.
In all honesty, we are yet to see any of that (why he’s so highly rated by Chelsea) yet. There has been some glimpses, sure. But even Mudryk admits we have not seen the best of him.
I was vocal when we signed him because I was far from convinced and thought we should have been spending that money in other areas. I absolutely love it when I am proven wrong with these things because that would mean it’s for the benefit of Chelsea. But unfortunately, so far at least, I’ve been proven right on this one.
But will I finally be proven wrong? Mudryk thinks so and I hope he’s right.
“People haven’t seen the best of me,” Mudryk said this week.
“There is still a lot more to come. I do a lot of hard work on and off the pitch. Sometimes you want something so bad but only at the right time will it happen.”
“You can try too hard, so you have to find a balance between that and not trying at all. When you find this balance, you will find success. I am confident you will see the best of me over time.”
I truly hope this happens, I really do. He seems like a lovely person and we all know what he’s gone through in life coming from war-torn Ukraine.
Look, he’s not a bad player. We know what he can bring. He can score a decent goal, he’s got pace for days, and he can beat a player. But he lacks confidence, and he lacks footballing intelligence. And at times, he just lacks quality too. He’s massively inconsistent and has done nowhere near enough in his two seasons so far to make me believe he will make it at Chelsea. If he was sold tomorrow I’d be happy, that’s how I feel. I think we can easily upgrade him and we already have with Pedro Neto.
Mudryk’s first season was a write off because he joined in January and of course, needed time to settle. It was also another pretty turmoil time at our club.
Last season he didn’t improve and although we must factor in how bad Chelsea were overall (bar the last 8 games), Mudryk didn’t kick on.
So my question to everyone is, how much time should we be allowing him? Saying we will see the best of him ‘over time’ does not fill me with confidence.
We are a Chelsea team who need success right now, this season. We need Champions League football, everyone has seen that and the implications it has on finances if we don’t get it. So we can’t afford to wait ‘over time’ can we? This isn’t me being a spoiled fan, this is just a fact.
I want to give every player every chance to make it at Chelsea, but we need results and we need to get something back from the price we pay for players, and we paid FAR too much for Mudryk at the time let’s be honest.
I think it’s now or never for Mudryk. We have to see VAST improvements right now. If we don’t, then we should sell him in January. That’s my view. I’d have taken a loan move for him this summer because we haven’t amortised his fee enough yet to make a profit on selling him and also, why not? The pressure releases and maybe he does show what he can do and becomes the player that Chelsea think he is? I’d have given him that chance for sure, it might actually have been the answer. But that doesn’t look like it will happen at this stage.
