Speaking on the BBC’s Transfer Gossip Daily Podcast, The Telegraph’s Luke Edwards has been discussing the race for Mykhaylo Mudryk.
Mudryk has been linked with Arsenal for what feels like an eternity at this point, but on Tuesday evening, The Sun reported that Chelsea are trying to hijack this bid.
Edwards has questioned these reports though, stating that this could just be a ploy from Shakhtar in order to get Arsenal to hurry up and pay the £85m fee needed to land the winger this month.
Edwards isn’t buying into Chelsea’s interest all that much, stating that he still believes Arsenal are in pole position for this player.
Arsenal favourites for Mudryk
Edwards shared what he knows about this transfer tussle.
“Mudryk has been issuing a come and get me plea. What you do to do that is to like Instagram posts. It’s pretty obvious he wants to go to Arsenal. Arsenal are haggling over the fee, Shakhtar are in a complicated legal action with FIFA over their players. If Chelsea do come in and are trying to gazump them and are willing to pay the money that’s Arsenal’s fault,” Edwards said.
“This is what I call the spider’s web of transfers. Are Chelsea really going for Mudryk? Or has this story leaked because they want Arsenal to cough up the money, because if you say Chelsea are interested that helps negotiations. It’s the murky, twisted world of the January transfer window in particular. I’m not so sure, I would still think Arsenal are in pole position to get the player, but it’s worth keeping an eye on Chelsea.”
Smart play
If this is indeed what Shakhtar are doing, it’s a very smart play.
Arsenal are hesitant to pay up for Mudryk, but reports about Chelsea may well speed things along.
While Edwards does think this may be the case, we have to disagree. Fabrizio Romano himself has stated that Chelsea think Mudryk is ‘perfect’ and it’s very rare for the Italian journalist to publish misinformation on transfers – especially high-profile ones.
This race may well have a few more twists and turns to go.
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