Mykhailo Mudryk failed to make the most of his first start of the 2023/24 Premier League campaign in their underwhelming goalless draw against Bournemouth, but he actually started to trend even before the game began.
The Ukrainian winger is yet to score a single goal in the Premier League for Chelsea since joining them from Shakhtar Donetsk in January. The 22-year-old actually had a pretty decent game against the Cherries, making a few nice runs and creating chances, as well as being a nuisance on the left flank.
But the inability to create chances saw him taken off in the second half, failing to add any goals or assists to his tally. Despite his troubles on the pitch, Mudryk is trying to stay as proactive and happy as possible in his real life as he still adapts to a different lifestyle in England as compared to what was in Ukraine.
Mykhailo Mudryk trends for Premier League graphic pose
The Chelsea winger appears to be familiarizing himself with more pop culture elements to make sure he can interact with British people without ease. He also appears to being influenced by some of it, as indicated at the strange thing he appears to have done for the official Premier League graphic which is often shown before matches kick-off.
As a way of keeping the players hooked, the Premier League has kept changing their graphics system in the way they announce the team lineups and formations before kick-off. Over the last few years, they’ve kept the physical models of the players and adapted themselves onto their official graphs. In this, players are allowed to either stand straight or make some unique poses to catch the fans’ attention.
Mudryk’s pose, for one, definitely stands out from anything seen in a Premier League matchday graph. Instead of just standing still or trying to look intimidating, the Ukranian winger can be seen pointing his fight index finger towards the screen and almost smelling the inside of his jersey.
Of course, fans got to see this for the first time as the game against Bournemouth marked Mudryk’s first start of the campaign. A lot of fans were totally bamboozled by this, being confused by exactly what the Chelsea winger was trying to do in this one.
What could’ve inspired Mudryk’s weird pose?
That is because Mudryk’s pose is actually both confusing as well as hilarious, standing out from the pose or gestures made by his teammates in the official graphs. Of course, the young winger was widely mocked for this weird gesture – with fans linking it to his poor form for Chelsea and being unable to validate his £85 million+ price tag yet.
However, a more logical validation of his pose could be that Mudryk was influenced by something he probably saw on the internet and decided to pay homage to it during the Premier League Media Day – when the players are made to pose for their official virtual models and graphs.
A lot of fans have speculated that Mudryk might’ve been inspired by the hit British TV show Top Boy in doing this pose. Top Boy is a British TV show that focuses on the drug-dealing and gang-violence scene set in London, and it has gained quite a lot of popularity since Netflix acquired its rights.
Some feel that Mudryk is trying to act like a ‘gangster’ in trying to cover his nose and mouth with the top of his jersey and trying his best to make himself look intimidating. Unfortunately for the Chelsea winger, he’s only given the social media memers even more content to mock him for the foreseeable future rather than be able to intimidate anyone.
Mudryk is unlikely to be paying attention to what is being said on social media because of his focus on improving his game. While his homage to pop culture elements is cool, he’ll probably need to focus on further improving his game to even have a long-term career at Stamford Bridge.