Arsenal’s pursuit of Mykhaylo Mudryk has had more twists and turns than a ride at Alton Towers.
The Ukrainian winger is the Gunners’ top target heading into the January transfer window, but, in our view, this pursuit needs to come to a short, sharp end now.
Indeed, while Mudryk is a talented player, this transfer is getting out of hand.
Shakhtar’s assistant Sporting Director, Carlo Nicolini has come out and, once again, stated that Shakhtar want a massive fee for this player, claiming that the Ukrainian club want a fee close to the £100m paid by Manchester City to sign Jack Grealish.
“As we’ve always said, to deal with Mudryk you need to make an important offer. Arsenal may have made such an offer, but there is a negotiation. Players have been sold that clubs wanted to sell and that we believe are no stronger than Mudryk with a valuation of around €100 million, so the €60m is not enough,” he told Calciomercato.
“I’m not the one making the figure, I don’t have particular indications from the company, but the sporting director said that we need an important offer closer to Grealish than to Antony. If the cash figure is €40m then it’s not even being taken into consideration.”
Now, Mudryk is a good player, but you have to draw a line somewhere, don’t you?
A fee of close to £100m is utterly ridiculous for a player who has never played more than 20 games in a single season and has never kicked a ball in a top-five league.
Simply put, Shakhtar are trying to fleece Arsenal here, and alarm bells must be going off at the Emirates.
£100m is a lot of money. There are very few players in world football that you wouldn’t be able to sign for that figure, and given that Mudryk is so unproven, we have to say that this sort of cash would be better off spent elsewhere.
Arsenal need to drop this Mudryk pursuit now.
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