A pretty spicy exclusive from Football Insider has today claimed that Mauricio Pochettino and his coaching staff are running out of patience with Mykhailo Mudryk.
They think he’s lacking some fundamental parts of his game (this is evident after just watching him for ten minutes), and are starting to wonder whether he’s going to be able to learn them.
He doesn’t seem to have improved much since arriving over a year ago, and the “raw talent” we were promised is heading directly towards disaster, given the £88.5m (Sky Sports) we could potentially end up paying.
But as so often, this “exclusive” feels more like 2 and 2 being put together. We’ve all seen Mudryk struggling with our own eyes, and we’d be more surprised if this wasn’t the sort of thing being said behind closed doors.
Although perhaps this is the first in a long line of gentle briefs from the club to prepare the ground for a Mudryk sale somewhere down the line? That’s not impossible either.
One of the biggest problems seems to be that the player thinks he’s better than he really is. In other words, he doesn’t know what he doesn’t know and, therefore, has no respect for what he doesn’t know. If he did, you’d think we’d have seen some improvement, but it’s just not been in evidence. You hear stories that he’s a monster in the gym and it really makes you wonder whether he’s putting in the time with the ball at his feet! For a player with such speed and acceleration, it’s a major problem that his (heavy) touch so frequently lets him down. That can obviously be remedied by working at it, but is he?
Similarly, his on-field IQ (where to move both with and without the ball) is incredibly poor, so is he spending time watching film and speaking with his coaches? One wonders.