Mykhailo Mudryk will play for Ukraine in this summer’s U21 European Championships, the Eastern European nation announced today.
It’s a slightly odd decision from some angles – he’s a fully fledged international and a key player in their senior national team. You wouldn’t see England call up Jude Bellingham to their U21 team now, for example.
But Ukraine are in a different place entirely, and to them an U21 Championship may be a vitally important staging post for their national game as it develops.
From a Chelsea point of view we don’t really want to see Mudryk playing more games than necessary, but on the other hand we do like the idea of him gaining experience in general and playing more games overall. For a player who was transferred for big money back in January of this year he has really played relatively few games in his career – just 64 league games in total. Another dose of really competitive action could do him good.
He looked short of confidence and out of his depth in the Premier League – hopefully this spell will do him good.
