He is a serious player for a club that has once again earned the right to be taken seriously in the title race. And let’s be clear, it is easy to see why 21-year-old Mykhaylo Mudryk wants to join Arsenal.
Chelsea are loitering with intent - just as they did with a string of players last summer before losing them to rival clubs. But the deal waiting to be done is the one taking Mudryk to north London for around £62million.
Understandably so, Chelsea under Roman Abramovich would have been serious contenders for the Shakhtar winger’s signature, given the ruthless way in which the Russian would address underachievement. But Chelsea under the current ownership are drifting. A work in progress. A collection of fine players functioning well below their capabilities.
Chelsea right now are a club that has lost it’s way.
A club that backed one manager, Thomas Tuchel, in the transfer market last summer, only to change course a month into the campaign and hand the players he’d signed to Graham Potter.
Understandably, Potter is struggling. The squad is not yet his. Injuries have made things worse. Chelsea have it all to do to make next season’s Champions League.
If you are Mudryk, there is no competition between the Blues and the Arsenal side beaten just once in the Premier League this season. If you are Mudryk you want to fight for your place in a team top of the league with the second-best defensive record. A team that started the season targeting a place in the top four but now way ahead of schedule, taking a previously-unthinkable shot at the title.
Arsenal can rest easy despite the news that Chelsea are keen on hijacking their deal.
The north Londoners are the more stable club right now, having kept their heads and stuck by Mikel Arteta when all about them were losing theirs over the past couple of years.
Arsenal’s recruitment has been outstanding, from back to front. Their big-name underachievers have been shipped out and their big-money investments have borne fruit.
Mudryk would be another. Having scored 10 goals and provided eight assists for Shakhtar this season, with five of his contributions in the Champions League, the Ukrainian would arrive in red-hot form. He’d bring pace, trickery and a fortitude forged in a country where football has tended to play second fiddle to infinitely more serious issues over the past 18 months or so.
He could play in his favoured left-wing position with Gabriel Martinelli deployed more centrally. Or Arteta could perhaps be more patient with Mudryk and restrict him to being an impact substitute ahead of a more full-blooded campaign next season.
Either way, you can understand why the player only wants Arsenal. After nearly two decades in the title wilderness they are back in business and ready to flex with a statement of intent in the transfer market as well as the league.
