"Looks like a player that has no confidence" - Darren Bent reacts to Chelsea star's poor start to the season

TalkSPORT pundit Darren Bent has given his take on Chelsea winger Mykhailo Mudryk.

Speaking on the TalkSPORT podcast, the former Tottenham Hotspur striker said that he expected Mudryk to explode this season. Instead, Bent believes Mudryk is now out of confidence and struggling at Chelsea.

“He just looks like a player that has no confidence whatsoever, and I mean, whatsoever. Everything that he does, just doesn’t work, does it? Watching him in pre-season, I thought, ‘You know what? He looks like he is going to come back with a newfound focus, confidence'. Just hasn’t got any. Just keep going, keep plugging away.”

Mudryk has made 20 appearances for the Blues, registering two assists. He is yet to score for Chelsea since joining the club from Shakhtar Donetsk for a mammoth fee of £88.5 million in January 2023.

Mudryk struggled to get consistent game time last season owing to the vast squad size at Chelsea. In the few chances he got, the Ukrainian winger failed to impress the fans and pundits.

Ahead of the summer, Mudryk appeared to have shrugged off the disappointment of last season. He had a good pre-season and was lively at the international level as well.

However, four league games into the new season and Mudryk is once again failing to deliver end products to his game.

Chelsea struggling overall could be having an impact on Mudryk's performance

While one is not the cause for another, Chelsea's poor run of form will definitely have a correlation for Mudryk's bad outings.

The club overall has failed to deliver as a team since new owner Todd Boehly took over last summer. They finished a lowly 12th in the league last season, scoring only 38 Premier League goals in the 2022-23 campaign.

Over the course of this calendar year, Chelsea have garnered only 24 points in 27 league games, placing them 16th in the hypothetical league table for the year 2023.

The lack of goals upfront means that the players are unable to link up well enough to get behind opposition defenses. It could play a role in Mudryk's disappointing outings so far as the mood and atmosphere around Stamford continue to be gloomy despite heavy outlays on transfers.

Chelsea are currently 12th in the league this season, having collected four points from four games. Their last match ended in a 1-0 defeat against Nottingham Forest at home.