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There was shock news from the Premier League on Tuesday morning.
Chelsea have confirmed winger Mykhailo Mudryk has been contacted by the Football Association after an adverse finding in a routine urine test following reports the winger has been provisionally banned by the governing body.
Earlier on Tuesday morning, the Daily Mail’s Mike Keegan reported the Ukraine international has been provisionally suspended after he was notified he had returned a positive drugs test and that led Chelsea to release a statement of their own just hours later.
It read: “Chelsea Football Club can confirm the Football Association recently contacted our player Mykhailo Mudryk concerning an adverse finding in a routine urine test. Both the Club and Mykhailo fully support The FA’s testing programme and all our players, including Mykhailo, are regularly tested. Mykhailo has confirmed categorically that he has never knowingly used any banned substances. Both Mykhailo and the Club will now work with the relevant authorities to establish what has caused the adverse finding. The Club will not be commenting any further.”
The announcement provides another disruption to his attempts to make an impact at Stamford Bridge. After joining the Blues in a reported £63m deal from Shakhtar Donetsk during January 2023, Mudryk has scored ten goals and provided nine assists in 73 appearances in all competitions. However, he has never really secured a regular starting place under the likes of Frank Lampard, Graham Potter, Mauricio Pochettino or current head coach Enzo Maresca.
There have been some positive signs of progression under the latter as the 28-times capped Ukraine international has scored three goals and provided five assists in 15 games in all competitions since the Italian succeeded Pochettino during the summer. After signalling his unhappiness with Mudryk’s performances earlier in the season, Maresca gave a more uplifting assessment of his progress in late-October.
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He said: “We're working with him and all the wingers. They need to arrive inside the box in the position where Misha [Mudryk] scored. He's struggled to arrive there, now he's started to. That's where we're going to score goals. We want the best for Misha - since day one we've tried to help him. Probably he's one of the guys that the learning process is more slow compared to the rest. But he's improving. I'm sure that slowly, slowly we're going to arrive where he will score more goals and to be more important for us."
Mudryk has not appeared for Chelsea since he scored in a 2-0 win against Europa Conference League opponents Heidenheim late last month - and it now remains to be seen when he will feature for the Blues once again.
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