Mudryk’s OnlyJesus Page

by imothyt

What we know:

Mykhaylo Mudryk is from the Ukraine, he played for Arsenal Kyiv and currently plays for Shakhtar Donetsk. Arsenal have made an approach to Shakhtar this winter but the Guardian are reporting (source is almost certainly Shakhtar!) that Shakhtar want £85m for him. Sources on twitter say Arsenal have offered £50m plus incentives to bring the total to £70m.

Mudryk is 21, until January 4th (so, he’s still 21, that’s how it works). He is 175cm and 132lbs. He has a tattoo with Arsenal forward Gabriel Jesus’ name on his neck. It says “Only Jesus” so it seems like he’s a fan. Either that or it’s an advertisement for a weird Christian Porn site.

He’s played in just 12 Champions League Matches in his career, scoring 3 goals and providing 2 assists. This season seems to be a breakout season for Mudryk – he already has 10 goals and 8 assists in 18 appearances. Previous to this season he played 43 matches and had 2 goals and 6 assists (all coming from last season). (This is according to fbref, I didn’t bother checking other sites)

He almost exclusively plays on the left, though he is right footed.

I have seen him play exactly one time (on TV). He is an exciting player, albeit he’s also incredibly raw and very sloppy with his passing. His dribbling ability seems very try-hard but doesn’t come off. It was one game, though, and he scored and provided two assists (against RB Leipzig).

He is obscenely fast.

Underlying data:

Here’s where we get a bit of analysis. And the analysis is that you shouldn’t believe anything when it comes to his data. Everything is tiny, miniscule, infinitesimally small sample size. We have exactly 12 matches worth of data that is publicly available. A whopping total of 698 minutes. So, everything I’m going to say below should be utterly ignored.

He doesn’t play defense. In 698 minutes he has 8 tackles and 10 tackles against dribblers (he won 4). He has 1 interception and three blocked passes.

I wish we had the carry data but since fbref went to Opta that stuff is no longer available. But his dribbling this season is atrocious. He would have the lowest dribble % of any Arsenal player. He would have the highest dispossessed rate of any Arsenal player as well.

His pass completion rate is also fucked. He completed just 72% of his passes, which would put him justr one % point below Martinelli. But Martinelli’s pass% is lowered because he tries long passes and only completes 50% of them, Mudryk’s medium passing is 65% (Martinelli 77%). Of course, pass% is highly dependent on teammates and on the role a player is playing in a team. A player who is being asked to play most of the attacking outlet for a team (which is true of Mudryk) can often have lower pass% because they are trying more ambitious passes. This matches what I saw when I saw him play (he only completed 53% of his passes that day!)

He does have one pass stat which is incredibly good: he has 5 through balls in 6 CL matches this season. To put that in context, Martin Odegaard has 7 through balls this season in 13 PL matches.

Bringing it all home:

Mudryk plays almost exclusively in the same position as Martinelli and has some very similar stats. So, why are Arsenal interested in him for a whopping £70m+? And why would we pay that much when surely there are other Martinellis out there who Arsenal could get for a lot less?

First, I think Mudryk is a big gamble. I think it’s an Ivan Toney gamble. He is incredibly raw and in the Ukrainian Premier Liga is able to blaze past defenders with very little ball control. The idea of spending 70mm + on a guy who is raw strikes me as very odd. I get the arguments, however, that this is just what PL clubs have to pay these days and that the club must think he’s such a huge talent that we can take a big gamble on him. I hope they’re right.

And I don’t really care much about Arsenal wasting money. I used to care. I don’t anymore. I don’t have a good reason other than the fact that it bores me and I don’t think Arsenal are in any danger of going bankrupt. And even if they did some other rich person would buy them. And would it matter? Maybe, but worrying about that – which is something so far out of my control that it literally doesn’t even exist yet – seems like a lot of wasted worry. So, if they blow £70m on prospecting it doesn’t bother me in the sense of the money being wasted.

However, it does bug me to see Mudryk being valued at £70m when Khvicha Kvaratskhelia is supposedly only £60m (according to Transfermarkt) and Kvara only cost Napoli £10m in July. I know that the reason Napoli got Kvara so low was because of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. But the point is that there are 10m players out there that Arsenal could take chances on rather than 70m players. And if this 70m prevents us from buying a MFer (which we really really need) then I think it’s a bad move.

I totally get and respect the arguments that Arsenal need good competition and that big clubs, clubs challenging for the PL title need depth.

But I also think that we have Emile Smith Rowe – who is a raw talent also, and one which cost Arsenal nada, nothing, zilch, in the transfer market. In fact, Arteta mentioned ESR in his presser the other day saying how important he is and how we are greeting him with open arms and eager to get him match fit. How does buying Mudryk fit with that?

And if we are going just for competition, that’s fantastic and I hope we are also looking at competition and depth for Bukayo Saka and even for Jesus/Nketiah! We should be looking at maybe Nico Williams (£43m release clause!) and Georgino Rutter (£16m according to Transfermarkt). And if we want competition for CDM how about Manu Kone from Borussia M’Gladbach?

Or maybe we have money for all these players? I haven’t heard of anything brewing. It certainly seems like Mudryk is our only iron in the fire right now.

And look, I’m not pretending that I’m anything other than a fan of Arsenal. I don’t know Mudryk at all, I’m not as informed as Arsenal are on any of the contract situations above. Maybe the plan is to sell Martinelli this summer for £100m? Who knows. I’m just trying to figure out the logic of this transfer, which I still don’t 100% buy.

But in the end, my opinion counts for naught. Edu and Arteta have had some bad ideas and some good ones, and I have to admit that Arsenal have backed them to the hilt with money. While some of the transfers and signings haven’t been great, a lot of them have. And even more importantly, Arsenal are top of the table right now. And I can’t argue with that!

So, if we get him, I will of course be interested to see how his stats change, how he helps the team. And if he doesn’t work out, I’ll put about as much thought into the why as I do right now with Pepe. Which is to say, very fucking little.

However, I will just say that I REALLY REALLY would rather we get in a player who can play CDM at Arsenal. Our current first choice is incredibly injury prone and also a person I would like Arsenal to sell as soon as possible. So, hopefully we get his competition in this January also.

Qq

45 comments

  1. It’s more frustrating that we seem set to buy Mudryk for 70m+ and Liverpool are doing a deal for Gakpo (who is more proven) for about half this price. Granted, he seems like a really exciting prospect who could blow up into a player that will make his price tag seem like a gamble but this is how Pepe felt like and we know how that turned out. I wish we’d spend this kinda money on someone like Declan Rice. Only upside is he will probably command a low salary which might make the gamble more palatable.

    1. I believe that when it comes to salary there is a strong correlation between transfer fee and salary. In other words: if we buy him for 70m, you can expect he will be one of the top earners at the club. Pepe was.

      1. I think the new “regime” is trying to decouple transfer fee from salary. The Vieira package is instructive here.

        1. Vieira is on 2.5m per year – complete outlier.

          Zinchenko is on 7.9m per year
          Ode’s on 6m
          Ben White’s on 6m…

          I guarantee Mudryk is well over 5m per year. No chance they pay him less than Nketiah.

  2. He seems a good prospect, though that listed size makes me a little nervous. 132 lbs is tiny, and probably means easy to knock off the ball.
    For the stats above, feels like he’d be a good risk at 30 or 40M. Not at 60 or 70.

    We do need another somewhat proven forward pretty quickly. Who knows how long Nelson and Jesus will be out. Or if ESR gets back to the good form he had. The current front 3 can do a pretty good job based on the WHam result. But if one of them is out for any period of time, the bench is pretty thin. Don’t know that I’d bank on Viera or Marquinhos to provide any significant number of goals. After that, think we’re calling up under-23s.
    So ideally we find someone that could cover a couple slots across the front. Not sure Mudryk fits that bill either.

    1. If you watch his videos he is very easy to knock off the ball and only wins duels by kicking the ball around defenders. And if he bulks up, he’ll lose his speed.

      I’m very cool on this deal and feel like there have to be players out there who can provide quality depth for less money.

      1. There are similarities with the Fabio Vieira transfer. Both are lightweight and from second tier leagues but both have an elite trait. Fabio’s is ball striking, Mikhaylo’s is explosion. Both of those traits can be useful immediately but neither player is the finished product. These transfers are also part of the long game Arsenal are playing. Some won’t work out but they are betting on their own ability to develop these players and I wouldn’t bet against them.

  3. “And if this 70m prevents us from buying a MFer (which we really really need) then I think it’s a bad move.”

    Pretty much sums up my thoughts about this potential transfer. I just don’t get it. We need at least a short term replacement/cover for Jesus/Eddie, and we desperately need cover for Partey/Xhaka. I’m not sold on Elneny. He can perform reasonably well against the minnows in PL and the likes in the Europa League but he’s not a big game/time player. So yes, completely agree on Mudryk and potentially wasting 70mil on a player that might or might not work out, especially in the season when we are truly in the mix for the PL title.

  4. Could this just be a smokescreen? Wasn’t there someone Arsenal was linked with last summer (or summer before), only to move for someone else. I think, maybe, Ramsdale or White (smoke screen = Raya or that Dutch GK who was banned for drugs). I completely can’t remember, but this just seems odd – and maybe we’re setting up something else. Arteta playing 4D chess and all that…

    On a different note, Tim, totally follow your point on money spent. It just doesn’t matter anymore for Arsenal (and really any mid-top-table club). IF Arsenal gets into financial trouble it’ll take years to come to fruition – and if that’s the case – XYZ soverign nation fund will gladly purchase them …..

  5. “Either that or it’s an advertisement for a weird Christian Porn site. ”

    Is this really necessary?

        1. Mate, it was a joke. But, if it pains you so, I’m sure there’s a door around here somewhere…🤔

      1. Guys, here’s the thing: I thought it was funny. OnlyFans, OnlyJesus. That makes me laugh. I’m not racially abusing people, I didn’t shit on anyone’s beliefs, I’m not “yucking someone’s yum”, it’s just a pun.

        Please feel free to say it was a bad pun but it feels like this is one of those things that people should roll their eyes at at most. I’m pretty sure Jesus would forgive me the pun, heck he might even laugh.

        2. Ha ha! My bad for not spotting the pun. No biggies and TY to the community for not chasing my ass off.

  6. Best article i have read so far on this Mudryk situation. Have seen some pretty good tactical breakdown’s on the guy, but would i say any of it work £60mil? Nope. The only reason Arsenal should be paying that kind of money, is if there is a Financial oppprtunity attached to it (eg Ukraine specific endorsement, Adidas funding the transfer etc). Otherwise i can almost bet Gnabry, Raphinha, Asensio etc would cost way less, same as other wingers. Gotta assume its a smoke screen. (Eish i really hope it is, dont want another Pepe situation)

    1. The problem with Pepe was not his talent, it was in his application. The club properly valued the former but didn’t seem too interested in the latter. Then they hired Arteta and that was the end for players who preferred to get by on talent alone. That is certainly no longer acceptable under Edu and Arteta. There has been a focus on character from day 1 and I’m sure they did their due diligence on this player from a character point of view. I’d say we are getting a player with Pepe’s attributes but much younger and in a much better and more stable situation.

      1. The problem with Pepe was his talent and his application.

        Bottom line is that either “Don Raul” or his lackeys didn’t properly scout him and didn’t properly vett him.

  7. ESR is a non issue, he is an #8/10 player.
    Not really a winger.
    He can cover LW/RW to a decent level but he doesn’t really fit the profile of winger we need.
    It makes sense to go for mudryk because of his insane attributes.

    But he is a project player probably and will need patience and time.
    For a project player it doesn’t make sense to pay so much.

    Honestly we need to add star quality attacker, an unstoppable force in attack, if we have the money we should go for Rafael Leao.
    He is the only one we should go for.

    If we don’t have the money for that, we may end up overpaying for a player who is nowhere near ready but who we believe can reach the level needed in 2 years.
    Overpaying for his ceiling.

    That’s how I see it.

    As far as winning the PL is concerned, the attacker is a far far bigger issue than depth for Partey.
    You won’t even get proper depth for Partey in a single player, he is the destroyer and the main guy to beat the press and the main ball progressor.

    Proper depth for him would be buying 2 MFs.

    One MF to be a standard solid DM

    Second MF who is a left footed passing CM who can defend 1v1 to play at LB.

    I think that danilo guy from palmeiras can be developed into an inverted LB.

    Arsenal will probably persist with elneny which is good enough for 26/38 games.

    Mainly need Partey for big games.

  8. yeah, i didn’t know which way you were going to go with this post but i’m 100% in agreement with your valuation of mudryk. the only thing i like about this potential move is his name would look pretty dope on the back of an arsenal jersey. in fact, i have a rap name for him; murda mudryk.

    seriously, this kid looks like theo walcott. i guarantee edu has access to like 20 brazilian kids who are better than mudryk at less than half the cost. if there were a swap with him and reiss nelson, i don’t think shaktar would miss mudryk at all. he’s not better than martinelli or saka. is he better than reiss or emile, who cost the club nothing? prolly not. i’m all for “raising the floor” but this kid doesn’t seem to fit the bill.

    in my opinion, zinchenko has gotten the ear of the manager and hyped this kid up. we’ve seen that before with eduardo hyping up a countryman named luka modric but you could see modric was special. wenger was simply team fabregas. i see nothing special about this kid except he’s bold…but he hasn’t played in england in january yet. besides, teams tend to defend deep against arsenal. he needs space and wouldn’t have any space to attack.

    where we differ is i simply can’t get over arsenal simply blowing money this way. it’s simply not the arsenal way. there’s a difference between spending money and blowing it. buying this kid at this price point would be dumb.

  9. Excellent post, which, obviously I agree with. I have no idea why we are interested in this deal. None. Very expensive luxury player.

  10. A well argued position. Buying a callow, relatively untested speedster does seem rather an odd venture especially at the price Shaktar are demanding. A bid of £25m with £10m add-ons seems far more appropriate but it seems that we are already in deeper than that. It all feels far too much like the Pépé signing to me. I think a loan deal for Felix, albeit overpriced too, would be a much better gamble for the title.

  11. I’m gonna be controversial and go against almost everyone here and say I think Mudryk will be a special player. What I’ve seen of him reminds me very much of when I saw a very young Hazard at Lille. We didn’t gamble then, Chelsea did.

    I also think everyone is overlooking Arteta’s growing reputation with moulding young raw players. He improves them. There’s no doubt about it.

    I really hope the deal goes through as I feel front 3 back up is way more important than midfield back up at this point.

    1. Re: Hazard.

      Chelsea paid 35m for a guy who had help lead his team to a Ligue Un title, who had been widely tipped as the best player in Europe for YEARS before that, and who had scored 20 goals and added 15 assists in the season prior to signing him.

      Not really a gamble.

        1. IIRC Wenger was in for Hazard and we were negotiating the fee and the contract when the Chavs moved in and gazumped us on both fee and wages. I think that was the occasion that Moaninho gloated that all they had to do to build their team was to watch who Arsenal went after and move in before we could seal the deal. They did that several times in Moaninho’s first Chav stay – Cech was another one.

      2. That is the thing tho.
        If a player has that kind of body of work behind him, they are no more within arsenal’s budget.

        Rafael leao currently is exactly what Hazard was in 2012.
        Trouble is he costs 100 mil+ and 200k+ pw and is out of our budget.

        It’s more like arsenal are paying 70 mil for 2009 hazard who has barely played any professional football.

    2. yeah, so did i. back then, i wasn’t even a soccer guy yet. it was just something to do and everyone knew pele. when they came to jacksonville, i had to see the show; see what all the fuss was about. he didn’t disappoint.

  13. one reason for signing this kid may be the club either has no confidence in emile’s ability to compete with martinelli or they doubt his ability to remain fit and available for selection. if that’s the case, arsenal need quality competition for martinelli in the team. that makes the signing more logical. but wow, that’s a lot of money.

  14. I’m stoked about this transfer. I think he’s a massive talent with elite physical traits. He’s going to get inserted into an ideal situation where he won’t be required to be the main man and will be put into situations where he can excel. We know that because we’ve seen other players his age with lesser tools, lesser transfer fees and a lesser profile absolutely flourish in Arteta’s system. Why would this kid be any different? They hand picked him so they must love his intangibles.

    The most frequent concern I’ve seen cited is the cost and how it will hamstring us elsewhere. There is absolutely no evidence that that will be the case. Arsenal will almost certainly achieve UCL qualification this season so if anything the investment can be bigger than it has been. Why would the major decision makers want to derail this train now by pulling the financial plug? The buzz and goodwill around the club is enormous and that means profits. The money will be there.

    I think it’s fair to question whether this is the right player and whether it’s the right cost. That requires trust In the talent evaluation and negotiation team of Arsenal. They’ve been questioned about their choices in the past but their recent track record has been nothing short of spectacular. I definitely have time for any player they deem worthy of such an outlay, especially when it’s so obvious from just a few comps that he is special.

    People have thrown some names out as comps but the one that rings most true to me is Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain pre injury. The explosiveness, the balance, the terrifying speed, the ball striking… It’s all there. That type of physical specimen is rare, and very valuable. It’s also something this squad currently lacks after Saka and Martinelli. I don’t even think those two have the physical traits Mudryk will bring. He has been clocked at 36.6 km/h, the fastest in Europe. Imagine trying to press Arsenal with that kind of speed and dribbling ability as an outlet. Imagine trying to hold a high offside line. Imagine trying to tackle him in the open field. He’s a murder weapon against anyone who wants to push their fullback high. Imagine TAA or Cancelo chasing back and trying to tackle him.

    I do value Tim’s statistical approach and the disclaimer thereof. Both very appropriate. My reading is that he gets to do whatever he wants at Shaktar, so he plays hero ball. That won’t be the case under Arteta. He will learn controlled aggression and when to pick his moments to dribble. I’m so excited to see him in red, playing for this team and this manager.

    1. i think you got the wrong southampton guy you’re comparing mudryk to. i think he’s more theo walcott than alex oxlade-chamberlain. i guess time will tell.

      1. I agree on the Theo Walcott comparison. And the problem with speed merchants is that one injury kills their career at the very top. That’s what happened to Bellerin and Walcott.

        Also, it’s not like Ox has had a stellar career.

        I’d rather we not compare Mudryk to any of these guys. At 70m he should be compared to someone incredibly good like Christopher Nkunku, whom Chelsea are getting for 60m.

    4. Yes and also look at his step count and running style.
      Eventually, I don’t think he will be limited to big space dribbling.
      A lot of potential for tight space dribbling too.
      I see a bigger talent than Ox honestly.
      If he fulfils his potential, should reach Gareth Bale level.
      As a talent, I have zero doubts.
      Just massively overpriced and currently FAR from ready.

  15. I thought Ukraine was under martial law and had an emergency mobilization. As I understand it all men of fighting age (18-60) were forbidden from leaving the country. Last I heard it was extended until Feb 19, 2023.

    Does he have some sort of exemption from risking his life to defend his country because he can kick a ball and run fast?

    Do we stand with Ukraine unless we need a winger?

    Does leaving his country in its hour of need make him a coward or an opportunist?

  16. question; what are you guy’s thoughts on the drama surrounding emi martinez? i think the fact that there’s drama there is nonsense. gamesmanship is part of the game. we saw him do the same stuff last year during the copa america and i thought it was awesome. i love trash-talking goal keepers. he’s putting pressure on himself, betting he’ll perform in the moment of truth. deion sanders was the first person i saw do it and recognized it for what it was. since then, we’ve seen plenty of players do it and i love that big bravado in a player; especially a goalkeeper.

    my take is this; if you don’t like him talking trash, put the ball past him and into the net.

    1. The guys who need that to motivate themselves are often bad at keeping their focus when someone responds in kind. Besides, he’s been an underdog story so far – now opponents will try to work him into a caricature of himself. Maybe he should tape “Never Go Full Emi” on his gloves.

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