It was fairly hard to judge Mykailo Mudryk’s performance in yesterday’s game.
On the one hand he didn’t offer much, on the other hand nor did anybody in that team, really.
Early on he flashed his speed with a run in behind, but after that the team just weren’t able to find him in stride, and he offered less and less of those sort of runs.
It’s immensely frustrating – yesterday was the kind of game you want him terrifying Bournemouth defenders with his speed – but one also feels he is just a couple of notches away from causing damage. Mauricio Pochettino’s reaction to the winger’s first league start of the season reveal another person who is not sure whether to be pleased or frustrated by the showing:
“He is improving. He still needs to learn,” the Argentine said in quotes picked by Football.London.
“He needs to understand the game better, try to be more connected sometimes with the team. We need to give the time and tools for him to improve.”
Some serious coaching is still needed, that’s for sure. That goes both for Mudryk in terms of his decision making and his positioning for runs, but also for his teammates in terms of when to look for him.
Perhaps the right call is to give him another start next weekend, and hope he can improve on a bright 15 minutes from yesterday?
Nice to see Poch taking a constructive approach with his comments. He sends a message to the player to keep his head up and keep working while acknowledging improvement is needed. That’s a quality manager for you.