Is Mykhaylo Mudryk a mistake waiting to happen?
Arsenal's reported top priority this January is Mykhaylo Mudryk, the reported fee to sign him is very high, could this turn into a mistake?
The January transfer window is just over two weeks from opening and Arsenal have a lead target, from David Ornstein at The Athletic:
Their priority target is Shakhtar Donetsk winger Mykhaylo Mudryk and sources with knowledge of the matter think there is a good chance it will happen, though nothing is agreed at present.
Shakhtar have stated their value for the highly coveted Ukraine international as €100million (£85.9m, $105.3m) – but interested parties are of the understanding that a lower fee would be deemed acceptable.
That lower figure is reported to be €60 million so still a lot of money. We don’t know how much of that would be guaranteed and how much would be linked to performance but regardless Shakhtar Donetsk sees that they have an in-demand player and are looking to really cash in on the opportunity to sell at a premium.
If you are interested in learning more about Mudryk
wrote an excellent breakdown of him for Premium subscribers.
There is also a video breakdown of him for Patrons of Arsenal Vision that is helpful to get a feel for what type of player he is.
This is a transfer where having to rely on scouting is a necessity because Mudryk plays in the Ukrainian Premier League and that is a League where there isn’t readily available advanced stats. From what I can get from Wyscout he looks like the cream of the crop of the Ukrainian Premier League.
The biggest issue is trying to get a sense for how good the Ukrainian Premier League actually is. Their season last year was disrupted by the Russian invasion and that has had knock-on effects of players looking to leave or not join making judging the talent level even harder.
The League is ranked 16th in the UEFA coefficient, with Shakhtar ranking as the best team in that League but ranking just 102nd in FiveThirtyEight’s global soccer ratings. There have also not been a lot of big attacking players that have left over the last few seasons to help gauge how stats might transfer.
Mudryk comes across as a solid attacking winger:
A high volume of medium and low-quality shots cutting in from the wing onto his strong foot.
Shot chart via Wyscout Good goal production, but maybe some air in the numbers with 5 non-penalty goals from 2.7 expected goals. He is also putting nearly 70% of his shots on target right now which is something that will probably not persist.
Very good production for teammates but not the greatest overall involvement in build-up play.
A High volume of dribbles and carries the ball and does so fairly effectively taking advantage of his plus speed.
Lots of turnovers
Lots of incomplete passes
Minimal pressing even within the context of Shakhtar being a fairly low-pressing team, especially for the dominance that they have in the League.
Looking at how he has performed in the Champions League and with his Country does help boost his minutes against tougher competition but it is still not the biggest sample size.
This stats profile ends up looking significantly less impressive but this is also a not great overall team going against some very good (Real Madrid and RB Leipzig) and pretty good (Celtic).
The big and expensive question in this is where does the true talent level lie in between here.
I don’t doubt that he is an exciting and talented prospect. My big concern is that this feels like it has the potential to come with pretty big risk attached. Just last summer Mudryk was being discussed to join Brentford and Everton for a fee in the 25m range and now it is going to take something around 3 times that to sign a player, and this is based on performances in just 1420 minutes with a big chunk of those coming in a League where the quality is significantly weaker.
Now Shakhtar are posturing that they want €100 million for him but more realistically €60 million. My big issue that I have is that is more than the transfer fees that came with Raphinha and Richarlison who moved this summer. These are established stars that started for the best team at the World Cup. Mudryk could very well touch the level of these players in the coming years but that is less than a sure thing and it feels like a crazy risk to buy a player at the same price as established stars based on hope and projection.
I am sure it would come with wages that are less than these established players but a player doesn’t typically come close to breaking your transfer record on majorly discounted wages.
My concern is that this type of transfer really limits any upside, the teams that can pay €60 million for a player is already pretty small, and if Arsenal think that they can make a profit on future sale that market gets even smaller. This limited upside comes with a pretty big downside; this is a big bet for the team who are rich but not can throw money around without worry to cover problems they made for themselves rich. To pay over the odds to secure a player that the club and the scouting hierarchy really want is a high-wire act.
The track record for these types of deals is not particularly high historically (about 50/50) and I would say that Arsenal have seen a success in Ben White and a failure in Nicolas Pepe in their last couple moves where they went above and beyond to sign a player. When I went back and looked at the moves Arsenal have done going back to 2019-20, in my judgment Arsenal have had a 55% success rate and are not uniquely strong at not having things go against them.
There are a lot of reasons why a transfer can not work out, and even if you are pretty confident that this player is a good fit, the combined chance of something going wrong erode the overall probability. Here is a very simplified model where even when a team has high confidence about a number of items where these things can lead to a player not working out.
I understand the feeling to want to go for it. To a certain extent, I am there with you. In the US we have a saying, “Flags fly forever” referring to Championships lasting forever both in our memory as fans and in the trophy cabinet, you don’t hang a banner for a good financial result and a top-four finish.
That’s all good but it does have to be balanced against the chance that it goes wrong, Arsenal reported another big loss this season and if a big move goes wrong that might eventually limit what the team can do if these types of moves don’t pay dividends.
The downside of a move like this for Arsenal is quite large and I think that this has the trappings of a winner’s curse situation where there is certainly interest in the player but Arsenal looking to have the means and motivation to match their optimistic projections.
Thanks for this Scott. I’m sure a lot of Arsenal fans will play the “It’s not my money” card when discussing this transfer, but what concerns me is the opportunity cost involved. This rather huge gamble will obviously preclude any other serious outlays (particularly in the forward positions). It might help to put things in perspective if you did a piece on other, more certain targets who could be had for a similar price.
As you pointed out in your piece, Ben White (a guy who had already performed well in the EPL) panned out, while Pepe (from an inferior league) did not.