‘He looked like a 14-year-old’: Months after Arsenal snub, Mykhailo Mudryk slammed at Chelsea

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Stevie Nicol says Arsenal’s January transfer target Mykhailo Mudryk ‘looks lost’ at Chelsea, who have now sacked Graham Potter as manager.

The last straw for Graham Potter was Chelsea’s 2-0 defeat to Unai Emery’s Aston Villa on Saturday at Stamford Bridge, a game in which Mykhailo Mudryk didn’t cover himself in glory. 

Moments after Aston Villa had scored through Ollie Watkins, the Ukraine international, who wanted a move to Mikel Arteta’s Arsenal before joining Chelsea, went through one-on-one and had a glorious chance to equalise.

But rather than forcing Emiliano Martinez to get his jersey dirty, he instead, not only took an early shot at goal, but virtually passed the ball to the World Cup winner when attempting to open up his body and curl the ball into the bottom corner.

It was a prime example of a player lacking confidence and someone who is suffering in this 11th-placed Chelsea side that is now looking for its third manager this season.

When Mudryk went through on goal, Liverpool legend Stevie Nicol claimed that the 22-year-old ‘looked like a 14-year-old’, as he told ESPN.

“I thought Mudryk looked lost,” said Nicol. “I remember a couple of weeks ago when Potter surprised us by playing Mudryk through the middle. 

“I thought ‘wow, he did great’ and he looked good. He actually got through one v one against the goalkeeper (v Aston Villa), but he looked like a 14-year-old that went through because it looked as though he was scared.

“I mean his attempt to score was pretty embarrassing. He pretty much rolled it to the goalkeeper and hardly made an attempt to save.

“I look at Mudryk and I think ‘he is the classic example of what’s wrong with this Chelsea team’. There’s no flow to it at all.”

MUDRYK NEEDS TIME

After paying Shakhtar Donetsk £89 million (Sky Sports) for Mudryk’s services, fans will be wondering if he is another player that’s going to flop at the Bridge.

But Chelsea have to remain patient because their big-money January capture isn’t the only one struggling and there is a big reason why Potter is now out of the door.

There is talk that Chelsea are looking at possibly bringing in Julian Nagelsmann, well, whoever it is that comes in next, the first thing they need to do is sort out the mess of cleaning out the current crop of players because there is a stupid amount to pick from.