Mykhailo Mudryk is probably the most exciting signing that Todd Boehly and Clearlake Capital have made since taking over Chelsea.
He might also be the riskiest.
Chelsea beat Arsenal to the Ukrainian winger's signature in part because they were prepared to price their €100million (€70million up front, with €30million in achievable add-ons) offer at the higher end of his potential value. But the notion that Mudryk is ready to shine on football's elite stage requires a bit of a leap of faith. At 22, he has played just 49 league matches in his club career, as well as a further 12 Champions League games. From those, he has registered 12 goals and 14 assists.
But that startlingly small body of work also contains a very impressive Champions League group stage for Shakhtar Donetsk in the first half of this season, during which Mudryk showcased the devastating speed, skill and goal threat from the left flank that top European clubs are always looking to add to their attacking options.
It's fair to point out that Graham Potter has plenty at his disposal already: Kai Havertz, Raheem Sterling, Joao Felix, Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang, Christian Pulisic, Hakim Ziyech, David Datro Fofana, Omari Hutchinson, Mason Mount and Carney Chukwuemeka (though the last two more regularly play in midfield) are available for selection, with Armando Broja recovering from an anterior cruciate ligament injury, Christopher Nkunku coming in from RB Leipzig this summer and Romelu Lukaku and Callum Hudson-Odoi set to return from loans. That is a decadently long list.
None of them, however, offers what the best version of Mudryk could provide.
He could transform Chelsea's underwhelming attack — provided he, his new team-mates and Potter are prepared to adapt to maximise his strengths and minimise his weaknesses.
What comes to mind when you think of Chelsea's attack?
Ask many supporters who have endured the misfortune of watching them regularly at the end of Thomas Tuchel's tenure and over the first four months under Potter and the list of words that come back might well include: slow, toothless, predictable, weak, boring.
In this case, the advanced numbers back up the eye test. The pizza graphic below illustrates Chelsea's style of play relative to the rest of the Premier League this season:
Chelsea rank 19th of 20 top-flight teams for attack speed (how quickly the ball moves directly upfield), reinforcing the idea that slow possession build-up has been prevalent under both Tuchel and Potter. Despite this, their 2.7 direct attacks — sequences that 1) start from inside your own half 2) have at least 50 per cent movement towards an opponent's goal and 3) end in a shot or touch in the box — per 90 minutes is ranked fifth among Premier League sides, indicating they are effective at creating moments to move the ball faster towards the opposition goal. It helps that they are a very good pressing team — their PPDA of 10.1 (the passes per defensive action rate, which indicates Chelsea, on average, allow opponents to make only 10 passes before making a tackle, foul or interception) is the second-best in the division.
The big problem is that Chelsea have been very poor at turning their possession dominance and transition opportunities into good-quality scoring chances, never mind goals. Ranking in the bottom half of the Premier League for shot attempts and expected goals (xG) per shot attempt goes a long way towards explaining their mid-table position.
Part of the problem is structural — the wing-back system favoured by Tuchel and used occasionally by Potter can make Chelsea's possession more mechanical and less dynamic — but part is also linked to the personnel. Stamford Bridge has not had the privilege of watching an attacker capable of consistently creating an individual advantage, through speed, skill, strength or a combination of the three, since Eden Hazard left in 2019.
Pulisic was signed in the same year to fill that void and has demonstrated spectacular dribbling ability at times, but he lacks the Belgian's underrated strength. Injuries have also taken their toll. Some at Chelsea believed that Hudson-Odoi could grow into the kind of winger capable of taking up Hazard's mantle, but his career at Stamford Bridge since tearing his Achilles tendon has stagnated to the point that a loan spell at Bayer Leverkusen appears unlikely to change its trajectory.
In his limited high-level career minutes to date, Mudryk profiles as exactly the type of attacker Chelsea have been crying out, as illustrated in the Smarterscout chart below.
Mudryk is a prolific ball carrier, averaging just under six attempted dribbles per 90 minutes in the Champions League group stage this season — a rate that would put him comfortably ahead of all Chelsea's current attackers bar Joao Felix, who attempted four dribbles in just 58 minutes before being sent off on his debut against Fulham. His 'carry & dribble volume' score in the above graphic means he ranks in the 93rd percentile of left-wingers for the number of times he carries the ball. The impressive xG metrics (the blue spikes in the top-right quarter of the chart) also underline how frequently the Ukraine international caps his ball carrying with an end product, often in the form of a shot for himself or a cross to a team-mate.
Watching him in action, it is not difficult to see how Mudryk does it.
He has blistering acceleration in short sprints and game-changing, game-breaking speed over medium and long distances — the kind Chelsea have not been able to call upon in attack since the similarly jet-heeled Timo Werner returned to Leipzig.
The key difference, however, is that Mudryk is a far more controlled, skilful dribbler than Werner. Take this sequence (admittedly from a friendly) against Ajax in July 2022: he picks up the ball midway inside his own half with an ocean of space ahead of him, but an opponent well positioned with a significant head start to contain an attempted run down the touchline.
Mudryk simply bursts beyond him as if he isn't there and, a few seconds later, he has reached the Ajax penalty area with Jurrien Timber the only defender left to beat. Mudryk freezes him with a couple of fast stepovers before shifting the ball onto his supposedly weaker left foot and lashing a shot into the net.
This is the other factor that makes Mudryk a rare threat in the final third: he is genuinely two-footed and, though his natural preference is to cut inside onto his right, there are plenty of examples of him deliberately working space for a clinical finish with his left.
In the image below, he actually runs onto the ball in the middle of a crowded penalty area, touching it deftly between two defenders before clipping a left-footed shot just inside the far post — that he is clearly capable of being a difference-maker in the small as well as the big spaces on a football pitch is an encouraging sign for Chelsea.
Mudryk is a true winger who holds the width of the pitch on the left-hand side, which could give Chelsea a nice balance with Reece James overlapping on the opposite flank. The graphic below shows where he typically receives the ball compared to Potter's current and incoming attackers. Only Sterling has a comparable touch profile.
From this wide position, his two-footedness — he is equally capable of supplying precise cutbacks with his left foot or inviting in-swinging deliveries with his right — makes Mudryk very difficult to defend when he has the ball at his feet.
Let's look at three different examples of him in the same starting position in the same Ukrainian league game this season. On the first occasion, as the opposing full-back closes in, Mudryk deftly nutmegs him before sprinting into the space behind.
On the second occasion, with another opponent coming to help out the full-back, he simply suckers in both before poking the ball between them and bursting infield through the gap.
On the third occasion, the full-back stands off, wary of committing himself, so Mudryk just knocks the ball down the touchline and powers past him.
Off the ball, Mudryk absolutely loves making this angled run in behind a defence. If the opposing full-back is not paying attention or is not in the right body position he is finished — and even if he is, Mudryk's lightning acceleration means he is probably in trouble anyway. This particular sequence against Leipzig culminates in a tap-in for Lassina Traore.
Shakhtar maximised Mudryk's speed in the Champions League group stage with a direct counter-attacking style that aimed to supply him with the ball in transition as often as possible. His headline individual moment came in precisely this type of scenario, receiving the ball with only space and a back-pedalling Celtic defender ahead of him.
Rather than burning his opponent with sheer speed down the outside, Mudryk shifts the ball inside onto his right foot before dispatching a shot high into the roof of the net.
Mudryk is a very clean striker of the ball and is more than happy to shoot from outside the penalty area when the opportunity presents itself. Though the most efficient attacking teams keep long-shot attempts to a minimum, this ability to test goalkeepers from further out could help Chelsea broaden the scope of their goal threat.
Chelsea have a traumatic recent history of trying to fit dangerous transition attackers into their more possession-oriented style. None of Pulisic, Werner, Havertz or Lukaku have been anywhere near as productive at Stamford Bridge as they were for their previous clubs. Each has often found himself deprived of the space to do his best work by a steady diet of low opposition blocks.
Transitioning to a high-possession side may not be seamless for Mudryk either. His technique and general awareness when it comes to link-up play in deeper positions are not yet refined and, though he is capable of playing incisive through passes, at times he can also be too ambitious for his own good and give the ball away cheaply.
But Chelsea are changing, with new owners sparing no expense to overhaul the core of the team who won the Champions League in 2021 and evolve their style in every area of the pitch. A big part of that evolution will be looking to spring Mudryk with more direct passes when it makes sense to do so, giving him the best chance to carve open scrambling defences.
Chelsea's attackers have been frustrated by the unwillingness of those behind them to hit those more direct passes this season. Here is Pulisic calling for a ball in behind the Manchester City defence, only for Ruben Loftus-Cheek to check back inside and play safe.
On this occasion, against Arsenal, Thiago Silva picks out a sharp forward pass to Aubameyang, but misses an even better opportunity to send Sterling running through.
Finally, against Fulham, Mount doesn't see Joao Felix running into inviting space and instead plays the simpler pass wide to the overlapping Cesar Azpilicueta.
For Mudryk to thrive at Chelsea, his new team-mates are going to need to look for and recognise these passing opportunities.
Mudryk has become Chelsea's fifth-most expensive signing and, if the add-ons are fully realised, will leapfrog all except Lukaku.
His price tag is significant, heaping considerable pressure on a 22-year-old who has built his reputation on a handful of Champions League group stage matches and faced questions about his mentality and commitment as a teenager at Shakhtar.
It's easy to see how Chelsea might fail to fully unlock Mudryk's best qualities. The less polished parts of his game could cause more immediate issues within their possession style and there are also the broader questions about how Potter makes sense of this bewildering array of attacking options — an array that appears to have everything except a reliable goalscorer.
But it's also plausible that Mudryk proves a big help to Potter in that endeavour by complementing and enhancing what Chelsea already have.
His speed and direct running will be a constant threat to opponents, stretching them vertically as Werner once did and potentially creating more space between the lines for the likes of Joao Felix, Havertz and Mount to exploit. His skill with the ball at his feet could, in the best-case scenario, routinely command the attention of multiple defenders and leave talented team-mates open in dangerous positions — something akin to the 'Hazard Effect'.
Whatever the outcome, watching Mudryk and Chelsea try to figure it out will be compelling.