After praising Noni Madueke, Enzo Maresca was asked for this thoughts on a less successful winger, Mykhailo Mudryk.
Tonight was a typical Mudryk performance – a couple of brilliant flashes, a lot more very poor moments. Nothing has really changed since the day he first played for us, despite a series of different managers and formations and teammates.
“Misha, this is Mudryk, not only tonight. Since he joined the club, he had some good moments and some bad moments,” Maresca said in his press conference tonight.
“If he becomes more consistent, he can take one step forward. We are going to try and help him change. He needs to understand that we will give him the ball in the final third and he has to make the right decision. A lot of mistakes from Misha is about the choice. Hopefully we can help him and he can improve that.”
Maresca echoes lots of Chelsea fans in Mudryk criticisms
It’s pretty incisive assessment. It echoes what a lot of Chelsea fans would say, certainly if they were in the position the coach is, needing to be a little diplomatic and positive. Maybe Maresca really did watch all our old games back? He certainly seems to have come to the same conclusions as a lot of supporters.
Mudryk is our problem now, and regretting a desperately bad transfer won’t change anything. Maresca has to strip the winger back to his essential parts and see if he can find anything he can repurpose for good use in his very specific system.
We will see a lot of Mudryk this season, but it’s a long road to the actual first team for him now, after 18 disappointing months. The only reason he’s still here is his price tag, and he’s running out of time to prove otherwise.
get rid of mudrych, he’s not good enough, his passing is always rushed and his shooting dire. He’s had three seasons and that’s enough, he’s been given his chance.
Maresca likes to play his wings high and wide—heels literally on the touch line. Anyone who has watched Mudryk knows he reads the game poorly and that his movement off the ball has been terrible. Surely Maresca’s remarks indicate that (among other things) he needs Mudryk to remain high and wide AND patient. No more dropping deep to pick up the ball where his speed is nullified facing away from goal and where he tends to clog up passing lanes. You can count on one hand the number of times Mudryk made runs in behind last year, but, provided he’s willing to listen to and learn from Maresca, that’s going to change this year.
With apologies to the Who, meet the new Chelsea, same as the old Chelsea. There’s a new dance they all play. Sideways sideways back. Sideways sideways back. Trying to play out from the back, any decent team in the PL will press high and nick the ball. Don’t think In last night’s game the keeper kicked long once, or threw it quickly, Lost possession far too easily. Mudryk still making poor decisions, fast but final ball still bad. New guys impressed for a while, but no real game management. Mid table mediocrity at best this season. Mild rant over.