Paul Merson has told Sky Sports that Chelsea manager Graham Potter did not want to sign Mykhailo Mudryk, who snubbed Mikel Arteta’s Arsenal in the January transfer window.
The former Arsenal star and Sky Sports pundit has noted that Potter did not include Mudryk in the Chelsea starting lineup against Tottenham Hotspur at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium in the Premier League this past weekend.
Merson does not think that Potter, who was appointed the Chelsea earlier this season following the dismissal of Thomas Tuchel, wanted to bring the 22-year-old to Stamford Bridge.
Mudryk was strongly linked with a move to Arsenal.
There were rumours for weeks that the Gunners were laying the foundations for the signing of the winger in the January transfer window.
However, it was Chelsea who were willing to match Shakhtar Donetsk’s valuation of the winger, as reported by ESPN, who claimed that Arsenal ‘had led the way in negotiations’.
Shakhtar did not force the winger to leave, though.
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The Ukrainian giants told Mudryk that they were going to sell him to Chelsea because they were paying more, according to Italian journalist Fabrizio Romano on his YouTube channel.
The winger was reportedly told that if he did not want to move to Chelsea, then he would have to stay at Shakhtar until the end of the season.
Mudryk decided to move to Chelsea and not wait for a potential bid from Arsenal in the summer of 2023.
Paul Merson on January Arsenal target and Chelsea winger Mykhailo Mudryk
Merson wrote: “At Tottenham, they did not look like scoring a goal in a year of Sundays.
“Mykhailo Mudryk is an £88m signing sitting on the bench, it tells you he’s not Potter’s player.
“If he was his player and he would have gone to the board and said he needed him, and would have to play him.”
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