In Chelsea's history, which spans more than a century, Ukrainian players don't seem to have made much of a splash, but rather have been the subject of a lot of negative press. Even before Mykhailo Mudryk, Andriy Shevchenko, who joined the club for a record Premier League fee with the aura of a Ballon d'Or winner, ended up being the laughing stock of Stamford Bridge. Now that Mudryk has joined Chelsea for a £100 million transfer fee (the second highest ever, even taking inflation into account), will the 22-year-old star change the Blues fans' perception of Ukrainian players as "watered-down"?
The most remarkable thing about Mudryk is his incredible dynamic talent. In the Champions League, he led all players this season with a sprint speed of 36.6 kilometers per hour, which even surpassed the 35.69 kilometers per hour of the World Cup's "World's Fastest Man," Kamaldeen Sulemana.
Mudryk's speed is aided by his excellent station awareness. The following few heatmaps courtesy of WhoScored.com show that he stands further back than most inside wingers, while also covering a wider area:
The backward position gives him more vertical space to accelerate, while the midfield's outside-biased position gives him more horizontal space to create opportunities for his teammates to take the ball straight from behind. What's even more rare is that Mudryk doesn't just focus on receiving the ball behind the back, but also appears in the middle of the field to temporarily support the defense and play as a liaison between the three lines when his team gets the ball back and the opponents try to counterattack.
In six games in the Champions League, 69.6% of Mudryk's touches have occurred in the center backs (own box, defensive third, midfield third). Although his average number of touches per game (38.8) does not stand out among midfielders (only outperforming 5% of players in the same position), his awareness and effort to support the center-backs as a flanker is quite impressive. His role is somewhat similar to that of Fede Valverde, who is posed on the flanks: he can play in the backfield as a wingback to assist the left side of the defense, and then return to the backfield to take the ball when facing a tight-end, with great range of movement and positional flexibility on the attacking end.
However, Mudryk's back to back support doesn't mean opponents can take him lightly, especially since he possesses world class speed. In a wave of possession, Mudryk was given a one-touch chance in front of the net through just a simple wallop, but instead of being greedy, he crossed the ball to teammate Danylo Sikan, who pushed the shot but it was wide of the target. In fact, Mudryk averages 3.84 receptions of PROGRESSIVE passes and 2.79 touches of the ball in the opposition's box, both stats in the top 10% of players in his position. His dynamic gifts, including the fastest sprinting speed of any Champions League player and a physicality that has seen him play all 90 minutes in nine matches this season and show no signs of fatigue by the end of the game, are the greatest capitalization on his wide range of movement.
In the heatmap above, we can also see that Mudryk's position narrows as he moves deeper into the final third, which is a reflection of the team's understanding: Mudryk's cuts provide space for wingbacks Bogdan Mykhaylichenko or Mykola Matviyenko to overlap and form an attacking triangle with Herohii Sudakov or Lassina Traoré in front of them to advance the line. Mudryk's inside cut provides space for wingbacks Bogdan Mykhaylichenko or Mykola Matviyenko to overlap, forming an attacking triangle with Herohii Sudakov behind him or Lassina Traoré in front of him.
Mudryk switches with Sudkov to form a false ten, overlapping up Mykhaylichenko and weak-side flanker Oleksandr Zubkov to pull out the width of the formation; dotted lines show the direction of player movement
When Mudryk stays on the outside, the wingbacks are able to UNDERLAP into HALF SPACE to participate in the attack. Especially Matviyenko's height of 1.82 m adds to the height of the team in the attacking end. Mudryk's above-average ability with his non-dominant foot makes him even more disorienting in one-on-one confrontations with the defenders: when cutting inwards, Mudryk has already practiced a powerful shot, and even when moving towards the sideline, his left-footed passes are also above-average. He doesn't even need to slow down for a drop pass, but rather, he catches up to a ball that has been knocked hard past a defender and is able to get the ball into the box first time with his left foot, which is not his preferred foot.
