Chelsea boss Mauricio Pochettino has demanded Mykhaylo Mudryk makes improvements to his game after another underwhelming display in the draw at Bournemouth.
The Blues spent £88.5million to buy the winger in last season's January transfer window. But he has failed to live up to that price tag since his arrival at Stamford Bridge and still remains without a goal in the Premier League.
His woes continued on Sunday when he started on the left wing against the Cherries at the Vitality Stadium. The Ukrainian was unable to deliver an accurate cross in any of this three attempts and lost three of his attacking duels.
His struggles led to boss Pochettino hauling him off just after the hour mark, with Cole Palmer brought on in his place. And following the game, Pochettino demanded that Mudryk start to show why Chelsea shelled out such a huge fee on him.
"He is improving. He still needs to learn; the Premier League is very fast, the speed of the game is so fast. I think it's about understanding the game better, try to be more connected sometimes with the team," he said.
Chelsea complete record-breaking Enzo Fernandez transfer after deadline day rush"We need to give the time and to give the tools for him to improve during the season. We need to be tough in the way we are trying. It's about improving our efficacy in front of the goal."
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Veteran defender Thiago Silva could be seen growing frustrated with his side's attackers as they again drew a blank. And Pochettino was also left disappointed with the growing failure to score.
"I think again, it is to talk about deserve but the chances we create in the first 20, 25 minutes, I think we deserved in this moment to score but we didn't score. Then the game was open, the last 15, 20 minutes I think we wanted to win," he added.
"Sometimes we started to disorganise our defence with the full back so high which gave the possibility to make some counterattacks in transition. Disappointed with the result because we wanted to win but of course, we know the circumstances.
"Again we deserve more but we didn't get what we deserve. We were talking with Thiago at the end of the game about keeping more relaxed because sometimes defensive players want to help the team to score because the feeling is we cannot score.
"That's because Thiago has experience, but too many players are still learning about the game. That is the construction and to build a new team, we need to improve, many rules in football that you cannot write.
"The thing I am disappointed about is sometimes we tried to go too much and created more confusion to the offensive player and then provided some possibility to the opponent to create some chances."