Paul Merson doesn’t think Graham Potter asked Chelsea to sign £98k-a-week player

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Paul Merson claims Graham Potter didn’t ask Chelsea to sign Mykhailo Mudryk in January.

Mudryk, 22, joined the Blues last month from Shakhtar Donetsk in a deal that could end up costing them £89million.

The Ukrainian attacker was superb against Liverpool on his debut, but Chelsea fans have seen very little of him since.

Sky Sports pundit Merson believes Potter has given a real clue that Mudryk is not his signing.

The Chelsea head coach didn’t start the left-winger in the weekend’s 2-0 defeat to Tottenham and didn’t bring him off the bench until the 83rd minute, when the contest was practically over.

“Mykhailo Mudryk is an £88m signing sitting on the bench, it tells you he’s not Potter’s player. If he was his player and he’d have gone to the board and said he needed him, and would have to play him,” Merson told Sky Sports.

Mudryk, who earns £98,000-a-week, has come into a Chelsea attack that can’t buy a goal right now.

There’s no doubt the wide man will be disappointed with zero goal contributions in his opening six Blues appearances.

In contrast, he managed 10 goals and eight assists in 18 Shakhtar Donetsk games during the first half of this season.

The fact that Mudryk hasn’t started the last two Chelsea games, combined with the fact that he’s yet to complete a full 90 minutes, is a worry.

However, Potter clearly doesn’t know his best starting line-up and wants to try out all these different combinations.

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