Premier League | Liverpool – Chelsea | Mikhaylo Mudryk, 1st thrill: “He will get the fans up from their seats”

40 minutes were enough for the former Shakhtar Donetsk player to show that he was indeed not made of the same wood as the others. The first thrill came less than ten minutes after he replaced Lewis Hall. Found by Marc Cucurella in the corner of the area, the 22-year-old winger took over with Conor Gallagher, hooked James Milner, dribbled past Joe Gomez before unscrewing his shot from a tight angle. The action (64th), poorly finished, still gave a good overview of the frequency of support, the speed of execution and the technical quality of the man.

Mudryk goes fast, very fast, with and without the ball. James Milner was the first player to see this in the Premier League. Very ahead of a deep pass from Mason Mount, the old veteran of the Reds took a nice draft in the race and had no other choice but to stop the rookie from the Blues with an illicit tackle and sanctioned with a yellow card (66th). The speed differential and the warning collected by the 37-year-old quickly convinced Jürgen Klopp to replace him with Trent Alexander-Arnold, who was however weakened by a muscle glitch.

Meanwhile, Mudryk benefited from an even clearer chance than the first, receiving a nice returning cross from Hakim Ziyech (71st) but he made the wrong choice, trying to control the ball with his foot right rather than trying his luck first. The Ukrainian international still has a lot of progress to make in finishing, and probably in tactical rigor, since he has sometimes tended to leave too much space behind his back.

He nevertheless showed a certain maturity, under pressure, and took advantage of his brilliant technical quality to get out of perilous situations. Visibly not intimidated by the context, and in spite of everything after two months without playing, he often made the right choices on the offensive level, as during the two badly ended occasions by Ziyech (74th) and Chukwuemeka in added time ( 90th +2).

“It was really goodsaid his coach Graham Potter after the meeting. He’s only been with us for two days and he’s only going to get better with time and automation. There have already been promising signals. He knows how to find the goal, his quality of dribbling is very high… he will get the supporters up from their seatsBad news for them: they will have to wait two weeks, until the reception of Fulham on February 3, to see him again.