Chelsea ‘keen to move Mudryk on’ in January as Blues ‘offer’ two stars in Barcelona swap
Chelsea are “keen to move” Ukraine winger Mykhaylo Mudryk to another club in January but could have to settle for a cut-price deal, according to a former Premier League scout.
The Blues are doing well this season under Enzo Maresca with their 2-1 win at Leicester City over the weekend seeing them hold onto third place and move within a point of defending champions Manchester City, who are currently second.
After spending over £1billion on new players since a Todd Boehly-led consortium took over Chelsea in May 2022, the Blues finally seem to have settled down.
And now the Chelsea hierarchy and recruitment team can concentrate on fine tuning the existing squad of talented players with Mudryk potentially one of the next big-money signings to make way.
Mudryk, who signed for the Blues from Shakhtar Donetsk in January 2023 for a fee worth up to £89m, has only contributed five goals and five assists in 53 Premier League appearances since joining.
And now former Man Utd chief scout Mick Brown – who is still well-connected in the Premier League – has heard that Chelsea are looking to offload him in the January transfer window after the Ukrainian has just started one league match this season.
Brown told Football Insider: “I hear they’re keen to move him on in January. I think they’ve got the makings of a very good team at Chelsea, but he isn’t likely to be a part of that.
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“There isn’t space for him in the team at the moment and I don’t think Maresca has been particularly impressed by him so far. But I don’t think they’re likely to make a profit on him or even get their money back, let’s put it that way.
“He’s on a big contract too, which they’d like to get off the books if they can. That’s the problem they’ve got themselves into, though. Which clubs will be willing to pay his wages and spend a big chunk of money on signing him?
“I think, if clubs do make a move for him, they’ll probably look to pay around £30million at most.
“So Chelsea might have to bite the bullet and accept that if they really want to move him on. They’ll have to cut their losses.”
And reports in Spain claim Chelsea could attempt to sign Barcelona midfielder Frenkie de Jong in the winter window with the Blues ‘offering’ two players to lower the asking price.
Chelsea want a ‘reliable partner in midfield’ for Moises Caicedo and have ‘chosen’ De Jong as that man with the Blues ‘willing to include’ Benoit Badiashile and Ben Chilwell, plus €45m, to convince Barcelona to sell.