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Off the back of a needed Chelsea win, it’s been quite a 24 hours for Chelsea as co-owner Behdad Eghbali led a hijack for Ukrainian winger Mykhaylo Mudryk.

How it went down

Last week Chelsea told Shakhtar they had no intention of paying his €100m price-tag, but everything changed following the loss to Fulham. And because Graham Potter had already spoken to Mudryk, Chelsea were able to move at lightening-speed following internal discussions.

In the end, it wasn’t a difficult deal to agree because Chelsea had already held a meeting with a Shakhtar delegation at Stamford Bridge and knew what they had to pay.

It was also underlined to Eghbali and Paul Winstanley how atypical Shakhtar negotiations are and that a face-to-face meeting with Shakhtar president Rinat Akhmetov was important.

In the end, Chelsea decided to pay €100m, and although not all of the extras within that are easily ‘gettable’ the value, structure, add ons and personal terms all surpass what Arsenal were prepared to offer.

It is true that Mudryk dreamed of Arsenal, but Edu was not going to be drawn into a bidding war. So we see via this deal the different needs and thus recruitment strategies of both Chelsea and Arsenal.

The advantage to Chelsea is they get (much like with Joao Felix) a player for the 'now'. The disadvantage is this deal could be used against them in the market come future windows. For example, should they return for Enzo Fernandez, Benfica will be even more bullish about their own valuation.

In the end, Mudryk had to choose between staying at Shakhtar until summer or leaving for Chelsea. After Arsenal’s third bid, he was directly informed no deal had been agreed, and with Chelsea then meeting the valuation, it was reiterated to him that Arsenal were intent on walking away.