Mudryk Set for Tottenham Debut After Two-Year Saga
Tottenham head coach Roberto De Zerbi has confirmed Mykhailo Mudryk is finally ready to pull on a Spurs shirt, with the winger in line for his debut this Saturday after nearly two years in competitive exile.
The 25-year-old has not played a senior club match since November 2024, but De Zerbi believes the Ukrainian is now fit enough to make an impact from the bench.
“I don’t know how much time he needs to be available to start the game,” De Zerbi said in his pre-match press conference. “One part of the game, I think he’s ready right now to play 20, 15, 30 minutes.”
For a Tottenham side still trying to catch fire under their new head coach, it is a timely lift. Mudryk has been training and featuring in pre-season with Xabi Alonso’s Chelsea squad, yet the long competitive drought remains the key concern as Spurs work out how quickly they can trust him in the Premier League grind.
From suspension to second chance
Mudryk’s career was thrown off course in late 2024 when he received a provisional suspension after a low concentration of meldonium was detected in his system. The substance, a heart medication, is banned because of its potential to boost recovery and endurance. The fallout cost him almost two full seasons.
The case dragged on until July, when WADA reached an agreement with the English FA. Under current regulations, the levels found in 2024 would not be recorded as a positive test. That decision cleared Mudryk to return immediately and effectively closed one of the most disruptive chapters of his young career.
During the suspension, he was forced away from team environments. No dressing room. No tactical drills. Just individual sessions to keep his body in shape while his match sharpness inevitably faded.
De Zerbi, who coached Mudryk at Shakhtar Donetsk and helped launch him onto the European stage, has seen enough to believe the talent survived the lay-off.
The Italian is determined not to turn Mudryk’s comeback into a special case inside the Spurs dressing room. “Now I think he’s a normal player like (Micky) Van de Ven, like another player. If he deserves it, he will play or not,” he said, making it clear sentiment will not dictate selection.
Reunited with his “football father”
The move to Tottenham hands Mudryk the reset he has been chasing since his difficult spell at Stamford Bridge. The weight of a huge transfer fee at Chelsea never really left him. Performances flickered, expectation burned, and the story turned sour.
Now he is back under the coach who first unlocked his game in Ukraine. De Zerbi has long been viewed as a “football father” figure for Mudryk, the man who sharpened his raw pace and directness into something far more dangerous at Shakhtar.
He reflected on their shared history, stretching back to the start of the conflict in Ukraine and then through the recent suspension. “The last problem, the suspension, but by the end the potential was clear, is clear, and now his challenge is to respect all his qualities, because he’s a great player,” De Zerbi said.
That challenge is as much mental as physical. De Zerbi wants Mudryk to attack the season without being crushed by expectation.
“He has to feel this season, to live this season in the right way, not too much pressure,” the Spurs head coach added. “It is the right moment for him to show all people things because if Chelsea paid 100m four years ago – they bought a lot of big, big players, no? – they thought very well about the qualities of Mudryk.”
The fee, the ban, the stalled promise — all of it now collides with a fresh start in north London. On Saturday, if De Zerbi turns to him, Mudryk finally gets the chance to show whether that early hype still has a future.
