Chelsea Review : A focus on Mykhailo Mudryk

🇺🇦 🔬A focus on Mykhailo Mudryk 🔬🇺🇦

💭 Here are a few thoughts and stats on one of Chelsea’s (many) new signings ✍️

🤷‍♂️ Due to the prioritisation and predominance of Double GW FPL assets for DGW22 and DGW23, 🇺🇦Mudryk might not yet be a really popular pick but I suspect that he may become one in the weeks ahead.

🍟 For those on Wildcards I imagine that he’s already someone that is at least coming into people’s thinking…and especially more casual FPL players who just like to pick exciting new players in the PL‼️

📊 We’ll start off with some overarching stats:

💶 Signed by Chelsea for a reported 70m Euros.

💷 Priced by FPL at £7m

📊 Current FPL ownership 2.1%

⏰ Mins in FPL so far: 35 min cameo bench performance v Liverpool (a) in GW21

⚽️ Categorised by FPL a midfielder

📈 Total career stats: Played 78, Goals 12, Assists 19

↗️ Plays as an attacking left sided player

🏃‍♂️ Particular strengths…pace, close control & ability to beat his man

🤔 And now for some opinions. For balance I’ll put both pros and cons ⚖️

✅ I do think that he could be a powerful differential moving forwards. That low ownership is an attraction 🪞for starters.

❌ Potter’s unpredictable style of management, tactical set up and team selection is an obvious deterrent. You’d imagine he should get plenty of mins…but who knows‼️

✅ At £7m he’s an pegged at an easy price point to get to.

❌ No DGWs on the immediate horizon make him a tough buy when plenty of other well performing assets do.

✅ We saw 👀 in those 35 mins v Liverpool what he’s all about…he’s going to terrify some fullbacks and RCBs that’s for sure.

❌ Chelsea not having a high quality no.9 is an obvious down side. 🇩🇪Havertz simply isn’t up to it on a consistent basis and the likes of Mudryk typically perform well when there’s a focal point up top for them to play off. A flying winger’s assist rate is obviously enhanced too if there’s a competent no.9 to finish off the chances created.

✅ A decent overall career record if you do a simple calculation of attacking returns / games played. He basically averages an attacking return every other game (i.e. 1 in 2).

❌ It remains unclear (simply as we’ve not seen it yet) how Mudryk will fit in to Chelsea’s tactical set up once players like 🇵🇹Joao Felix and 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿Ben Chilwell are fit and available again. Both of those lads would in theory impinge on the part of the pitch that 🇺🇦Mudryk tends to occupy. Does that make him a rotation risk❓Given 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿Potter’s prone to roulette as much as 🇪🇸Pep is, the honest answer is that nobody really knows yet 🤷‍♂️. We can’t even be sure whether 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿Potter will more regularly play 4 or 5 at the back once everyone’s fit 🩼.

✅ Chelsea’s fixtures are good (albeit like I say, they have no DGWs on the horizon)…Fulham (H), West Ham (a), Southampton (H), Spurs (a), Leeds (H), Leicester (a), Everton (H), Villa (H). That’s a very nice run 🏃‍♂️ of fixtures 🗓️.

❌ Goals have been a big problem for Chelsea – they’ve scored just 22 league goals ⚽️ all season (from 20 games)…that’s absolutely toilet 🚽. Will 🇺🇦Mudryk and the other new signings change that❓Probably, but my point is that you’re not investing in a FPL asset whose team is firing…and you’d normally want to be.

✅ Gut feeling…you won’t hear 👂 me basing too many FPL decisions solely on gut feeling (!) bit it does of course play a part…usually ‘gut feeling’ is driven by actual stats and the eye test but that’s an argument for another day‼️ Anyway, my ‘gut feel’ is that 🇺🇦Mudryk is likely to be one of Chelsea’s better new signings.

❌ On that note 📝…Chelsea are undoubtedly a squad in a state of flux. They’ve made so many new signings that it’s bound to take them some time for everyone to settle in. The likes of 🇺🇦Mudryk have a whole new country, language and culture to get used to as well. They then have 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿Potter’s often complex tactical instructions to get their heads around 🤷‍♂️. It’s quite a big ask. Layer on top of all that the fact that the Premier League is notoriously tough for new signings to settle into and it’s certainly not ‘nailed on’ that he’ll perform well as a FPL asset.

✅ I like his hair…I was a big fan of the Backsteet Boys back in the day so it’s nice to see that whole vibe reappear in our beloved Premier League 🎶. Apologies, i was trying to think of another positive to keep the article balanced ⚖️.

❌ We have just 5 midfield slots…and let’s face it, we have an abundance of great picks available to use that come with comparatively few downsides and certainly not the number listed above. 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿Saka, 🇳🇴Odergaard, 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿Rashford, 🇵🇹Bruno, 🇧🇪KDB, 🇩🇿Mahrez are 6️⃣ players that all double in the next 2 GW for starters‼️ 🇯🇵Mitoma probably gives you everything that Mudryk gives you and for nearly £2m less.

💭 For me it’s probably a couple of weeks too early due to a combination of all of the above. If I was on a Wildcard this week I’d say I’d be more seriously considering him. Thought to get there for most managers who will be wanting to prioritise the DGW players who, let’s face it, are all in great form and play for better teams than Chelsea right now.

👀 He’s very much on the Watchlist though and I think he’ll be an exciting addition to the PL and to FPL ✅.