Chelsea do not have an adequate replacement for Mudryk at his position yet and besides, in recent games not only Mudryk, but the whole team is showing good progress. After last failed season and 12th place, it seemed that Chelsea may eventually drop out of the EPL, but gradually Pocchetino rebuilt the team and now Chelsea scores a lot and almost all the midfield and attacking players forget the goals, everyone develops evenly. Only Palmer stands out a little bit, but otherwise the team play is visible now and every substitution now for Chelsea does not turn into a weakening as before, but on the contrary very often after substitutions Chelsea scores.
If Chelsea finish above 8th place this season, it can be considered a great success.
So who else should be in that position? Nicolas Jackson & Raheem Sterling? Both of them have also performed poorly recently. If Mudryk cannot adapt and perform well this season, perhaps the only way is to look for a more suitable player next season. Being ranked 8th is also not a parameter for their success this season considering they performed quite well in the 20/21 and 21/22 seasons. For me, their success this season after the chaos they experienced was to be at least 7th in the PL standings and get a spot in the UECL qualifiers.
Well, the fact that Raheem Sterling are playing poorly, especially allows Mudric to come on the pitch, although it should be noted that Pocchietino tries to leave Mudric in the reserves quite often, but still Sterling does not take his chances and Pocchietino has to release Mudric. Nicolas Jackson is still more of a striker than a midfielder and he has scored 9 goals, which is pretty good.
Of course for his 100 million that paid for him Mudric does not play yet, but he is very fast and can connect to the attack and his last goals scored very technically, which suggests that the potential for development he has and sell him for 100 million Chelsea probably can not and it is easier to try to develop him, so the chance that he will play higher.
7th place would be a great result for Chelsea considering the competition at the top of the standings. I believe that 1-5 places will be shared by City, Arsenal, Liverpool, Aston Villa and Tottenham, and Manchester United, Chelsea and Newcastle will fight for 6-7 places.