Tottenham has given Mykhailo Mudryk a route back into Premier League football and placed Roberto De Zerbi at its entrance. When Mudryk’s Chelsea career went on hold, the winger had already struggled to turn flashes into a secure role. He now arrives in north London at 25, after 643 days without a competitive club appearance. The immediate question isn’t whether he can repay an old transfer fee. It’s whether he can become reliable.
The season-long loan gives both clubs time to judge the footballer before confronting another permanent fee. Chelsea’s 2023 agreement with Shakhtar Donetsk could rise to about $116 million, while reports describe a Tottenham purchase option worth approximately $101 million. Mudryk returned 10 goals in 73 Chelsea appearances. None of those numbers will help him control a difficult pass or choose the correct final ball.
De Zerbi can help with the conditions around those decisions. He called Mudryk on his first day at Shakhtar in 2021 and encouraged him to run behind defenders, receive higher up the pitch and attack one-on-one. Mudryk became Shakhtar’s player of the year that season. His sharpest statistical surge came later under Igor Jovićević, a distinction that keeps this reunion from becoming mythology, but De Zerbi began the breakthrough and established the trust behind it. “He’s my football father. I believe in him, I trust him,” Mudryk said after joining Spurs.
The return also carries a disciplinary history that can’t be compressed into the word “cleared.” Mudryk became eligible again after he and the Football Association resolved his appeal with WADA’s agreement. He accepted that he had committed the anti-doping rule violations and agreed to a sanction equal to time already served. A later, nonretroactive WADA technical change means the low meldonium concentration in his 2024 sample wouldn’t be reported if the sample were collected today. His eligibility was restored; the accepted violations weren’t erased.
Football now supplies a simpler test. De Zerbi’s teams draw pressure into central areas and then move the ball toward wingers with space to face a defender. That structure can give Mudryk the starting picture he needs: open grass, an isolated fullback and a route toward goal. The system can create the duel. It can’t make the choice once the duel begins.
A comeback measured in decisions, not speed
Mudryk’s acceleration has never required much imagination. His Premier League record did. Five goals and four assists in 53 appearances showed why Chelsea kept waiting and why he never secured the authority expected of him. The missing qualities were often small and costly: the first touch that delayed an attack, the run made a second too early, the shot chosen when a pass was available. At Tottenham, recovery will be built from those moments rather than a single sprint or spectacular goal.
There’s no protected attacking role waiting for him. De Zerbi wants his wide players to press, hold the team’s shape and react when possession is lost. When De Zerbi gave Tottenham their menace back, the earliest improvement came from coordinated pressure. Mudryk has said he wants to help in both attacking and defensive phases. He’ll have to prove that such work can survive the speed and fatigue of competitive matches.
A successful loan shouldn’t be judged by whether Tottenham activates the reported option. First comes availability. Then meaningful minutes, tactical trust and a run of performances that makes selection feel normal rather than experimental. If Mudryk becomes a reliable rotation player who creates chances, contributes goals and can be trusted in difficult matches, his career will already look different next spring.
A full return to the status he carried out of Shakhtar is far less certain. Nearly two seasons of competitive development have disappeared, and De Zerbi can’t hand them back. He can restore familiar instructions, create repeated one-on-one opportunities and draw on a relationship that produced a breakthrough once. The career can be rebuilt. It can’t be skipped back to where it was.
