Chelsea Must Show Mykhailo Mudryk Patience As He Offers To Deliver On Potential
Mykhailo Mudryk went from struggling at Chelsea to being taken off before any other Ukraine player against England.
The 22-year-old missed his chance to prove a point to English football. In 61 minutes, he managed a single tame shot, gave the ball away 12 times and completed just one dribble.
Gareth Southgate had Kyle Walker man-marking Mudryk to deal with the winger’s renowned pace, and after coping well with France superstar Kylian Mbappe at the World Cup, the full-back easily won his battle.
Mudryk has made an underwhelming start at Chelsea since signing for £88.5million from Shakhtar Donetsk in January, but deserves some understanding. The fee is not Mudryk’s fault and neither was the high-profile nature of his arrival, given the fact Arsenal also wanted him.
He has played less than 100 career matches, earned just his 10th cap on Sunday and arrived in the Premier League having not played for more than two months.
Mudryk did his first UK interview on Saturday in broken English where he revealed he calls his Ukraine-based parents daily. He said: “I ask them what is happening, what the situation is now and how they are. Everything about what the situation is like in our country.”
England defender Ben Chilwell embraced his club-mate after the match, leaving the stadium alongside him. Like the rest of his countrymen, Mudryk is a man affected by Russia’s invasion and deserves time and patience.
Many of the staff for the Ukrainian FA at Wembley had to travel from Kyiv. It took some of them eight days and certain players 48 hours to reach London. 15 of manager Ruslan Rotan’s 25-man squad travelled from Ukrainian clubs.
They are partly exiled in Poland but also playing matches in the safer parts of Ukraine. They take gruelling bus and train journeys to their club matches with air travel not possible.
Rotan also noted his team’s lack of match practice — last facing Scotland in the Nations League in September. He told Standard Sport: “The logistics of moving from A to B are incredibly hard. It takes us almost a long time to get together and move to our training camp before the games.
“Unfortunately we have a war on our backs and we can only be grateful to the Ukrainian armed forces who make it possible for us to play games and to participate in competitions.
“Clearly logistics, under those circumstances, are second. The main thing is that we need this war to end.
“We knew the strength of the England team but the Ukrainian boys deserve better. It’s a good team and it will progress.”
