August 20th 2023.
Mauricio Pochettino has defended Mykhailo Mudryk after another difficult display in a Chelsea shirt, despite the Ukrainian being an underwhelming presence after coming on at half-time in the club's 3-1 defeat to West Ham.
The 22-year-old has been unable to live up to his £88.5million price tag since joining Stamford Bridge, but Pochettino is adamant that the young winger still has enormous quality and talent that will eventually come good.
When asked what was going wrong for Mudryk and what he made of his performance, the Chelsea boss replied: ‘Well I think he needs to be more in the spirit to score. But normally, today he played 45 minutes, he needs to have continuity. But first of all he needs to build his continuity and trust during the trainings during the week. He needs to be trusted, we need to trust in him to create this relationship with us and with the team.’
Mudryk only had 28 touches during the match, as many as goalkeeper Robert Sanchez, and horribly scuffed an easy close-range volley attempt which landed outside the box.
Pochettino also gave an update on Carney Chukwuemeka, who was forced off with a knee injury just before half-time. ‘We need to assess him. We’ll see tomorrow the assessment from the doctors and hope it is not a big issue, but we need to wait.’
The Chelsea boss was also pleased with the performance of debutant Moises Caicedo, who conceded the late penalty which sealed the win for West Ham. ‘I think his impact was positive’, said Pochettino. ‘We feel disappointed, he feels disappointed, all feel disappointed because I think we deserved more but in the end we didn’t get the result that we wanted.’
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