It had seemed as though it was a matter of time before Mykhaylo Mudryk would become an Arsenal player. For one thing the player's social media activity had indicated that he was clearly in favour of a switch to North London. There were few concerns over personal terms.
The stumbling block instead came from dealings with Shakhtar Donetsk. The Ukrainian side are notoriously tough negotiators, and made it clear from the outset that they wanted a fee of around £88 million for the 22-year-old. There were a number of reasons for this.
Firstly, Shakhtar have lost many of their star foreign players for next to nothing in the aftermath of Russia's invasion of Ukraine. Their club business model is in part built on being able to sell these players for sizeable profits, and with that in mind extracting a high fee for perhaps their most valuable homegrown talent ever became paramount.
