This summer, Shakhtar experienced perhaps the most difficult period in its modern history. Due to the start of the full-scale phase of the Russian-Ukrainian war, almost all legionnaires left the team, and many of them did it in such a way that the Ukrainian club could not earn decent money from their departure.
Mikhail MudrikAll this led to a significant deterioration in the financial and economic situation at Shakhtar. The Donetsk team lost, in fact, the key source of their income, which was top transfers, but debts in the amount of about 50 million euros remained with them, and absolutely no one gave the Pitmen permission not to pay them.
The simplest solution in the current situation for Shakhtar last summer would have been a total sale of all the players for whom there was more or less serious demand in Europe and the world. One of those was the young winger Mykhailo Mudryk, who managed to make his debut in the Pitmen's first team under Paulo Fonseca, but began to get a relatively stable place at the base already under Roberto De Zerbi.
In the summer, Mudrik was actively hunted by middle-class clubs from the German and English championships. In particular, there were mentions of Brentford and Bayer in the press, and the latter was ready to pay 21 million euros for the Ukrainian. Even then, many domestic experts and fans assured that Mudryk was not even close to worth that kind of money (the winger was estimated at Transfermarkt at that time at 9 million euros), and therefore Shakhtar should not puff out their cheeks too much, but it’s better to agree and complete the deal until the interest Leverkuseners to young talent has not faded away.
However, Shakhtar understood that the price of Mudrik could rise significantly based on the results of the team's performance in the Champions League group stage. For this, of course, it was important for the Pitmen in general and for Mikhail in particular to play well and demonstrate to the football continent that Shakhtar is still a real force in European competitions, even despite the hardest blow to the staffing...
In the current situation, Shakhtar had a difficult choice - to sell Mudrik in the summer, and significantly improve the economic situation of the club, or to play long, continuing to care about the status of a kind of "elite talent incubator", and letting potential applicants for the winger know that the Pitmen's bosses value this asset much more expensive than even most of the Brazilians who left the Pitmen's camp in the summer of 2022.
When Bayer was refused, and Brentford never came up with an adequate offer, it became clear that Shakhtar would follow the path of maintaining the strategy that they had been building for a number of years before. There will be no emergency sales of talented performers, even if the club has fallen on hard times.
Very soon, Mudryk showed himself superbly in the Champions League, becoming not only the record holder for speed at the group stage of this tournament in the 2022/23 season, but also distinguished himself by quite decent performance indicators - 3 goals scored and 2 assists in 6 matches, when opponents The Pitmen were played by Real, Leipzig and Celtic.
Shakhtar's bet on Mudrik's ability to express himself at the top of his voice played out. After that, it was the turn to announce to the applicants the amount for which the club would be ready to part with its new leader. As such, 100 million euros were determined, which was publicly announced to the whole world by the Pitmen's football director Darijo Srna and the general director of the Donetsk club Serhiy Palkin.
At the same time, Shakhtar's bosses quite rationally substantiated why the club settled on just such a figure as acceptable if it comes to Mudryk's transfer. In particular, Srna said that when evaluating it, it is important to rely on the cost of players with similar playing qualities as Shakhtar's left winger, but for whom real money has recently been paid. As striking examples, the Croatian cited deals for the Brazilian Anthony and the Englishman Grealish, for each of which the buyers paid about 100 million euros.
Undoubtedly, Shakhtar's assessments of Mudrik's transfer fee caused a serious outcry in the football community. In particular, it is absolutely easy to find reasons why Mikhail cannot be worth that kind of money - these are, for example, the nationality of the winger, and the lack of a stable and long experience of playing at the top level, and his game in the Ukrainian Premier League, which is no different serious competitiveness on the continent, and even the probable inexperience in transactions of such a caliber of agents representing the interests of a football player... In general, one can find many arguments of this nature, and all of them will sound no less logical than the position of Srna and Palkin.
However, it is important to understand something else here - Shakhtar very clearly outlined their position regarding Mudrik back in the summer, when they did not "bite" on the first more or less high offer for a player from Bayer, but followed a different strategy in terms of the potential sale of the winger. The Pitmen demonstrated something similar on the transfer market before, although they were not always able to “squeeze” the situation in their favor to the end. For example, in the cases with Willian and Henrikh Mkhitaryan, not as much depended on the Donetsk club as their bosses would like, but the successful examples with Fernandinho, Alex Teixeira and Fred prove that Shakhtar have learned to extract the maximum for which they “programmed themselves » initially.
There is no point in arguing with foam at the mouth how much Mikhail Mudrik actually costs. It is possible and even likely that its objective price in the modern market has nothing to do with the requested 100 million euros. But the market is a market, and the laws of supply and demand apply here. And the seller is free to set the price he wants. Especially if he is in no hurry to part with his asset and get rid of it in an emergency.
Selling Mudrik "at the speed of light" really doesn't make any sense for Shakhtar. Firstly, the winger's contract with the Donetsk team runs until the end of 2026, and was very timely, from the point of view of the club's interests, extended for such a long period. Secondly, from the summer, when Mudrik was given 21 million euros, until now, the estimated value of Mikhail on Transfermarkt has more than quadrupled - from 9 to 40 million euros. In other words, if in June Bayer was ready to overpay for a Ukrainian 2.3 times its face value, now, multiplying its current version by this value, we should talk about at least 93 million euros, and this is already almost as much, as requested by Shakhtar...
In this regard, Western journalists can say as much as they like that Shakhtar is asking for 100 million euros only in order to start bidding, during which they will back down. In fact, you need to remember the logic behind the decision-making of the Pitmen's president Rinat Akhmetov in such matters. And he repeatedly said that he gives approval for such transactions only when his "nerves begin to fail."
In the case of Fernandinho, it was about 40 million euros, with Alex Teixeira - already about 50, and for Fred, thanks to the owner's nerves of steel, Shakhtar earned 59 million at all. And even though it was not Akhmetov who voiced the price for Mudrik in the public space, there is no doubt that the words of Srna and Palkin were not just heard, but after substantive and scrupulous consultations with the president of the club.
So, it is absolutely not surprising that the first official offer of Arsenal for the transfer of Mikhail Mudrik for 40+25 million euros was rejected. Shakhtar will simply continue to stick to its line, letting the Gunners understand from contact to contact that 100 million euros is exactly 100 million euros, and not 65, 80 or even 99. Simply because this is already a matter of principle, which the Pitmen nevertheless decided to take.
And, frankly, Shakhtar is unlikely to lose in this situation, even if they do not sell Mudrik in the coming January. First of all, Mikhail is a really great professional who will not lay down his hands after the collapse of the bidding for his potential transfer to a top club, but rather prefer to work even harder to make the buyer satisfy the Pitmen's interests. Plus, right now it will be very important for Shakhtar to demonstrate to the football world that this club will not be able to take and “break through the knee”. The lawsuit against FIFA in the Court of Arbitration for Sport for 50 million euros proves that Donetsk residents will not sit on the sidelines, helpfully making those decisions, the fairness of which can be discussed for an incredibly long time. Also, Shakhtar probably does not want anyone to consider its position in the market weakened, and its grip not firm enough. That is why Mudryk, if he leaves the Pitmen's camp in the next transfer window, then only for 100 million euros, and the only subject of negotiations in terms of price may be the breakdown of payments into parts, or the inclusion of mandatory bonus payments in addition to the main amount, but no way not discount.
Alexey SLIVCHENKO
