Xabi Alonso has admitted he was taken aback after Mykhailo Mudryk was cleared to rejoin the Chelsea squad following the end of a long-running anti-doping case. The Ukraine winger is now set to link up with his team-mates for the rest of their pre-season tour in Asia.

Alonso confirms Mudryk will arrive in Hong Kong.

Alonso said he was delighted by Mudryk’s unexpected return, although he acknowledged the timing came as a surprise to the club. The 25-year-old winger had been out of professional football since November 2024 after receiving a provisional suspension for an adverse finding involving the banned substance meldonium. However, the Football Association (FA) has now formally closed its anti-doping case after Mudryk accepted the breach and agreed to a ban matching the 20 months he has already served.

Speaking after Chelsea’s 2-1 friendly defeat to a 10-man Tottenham Hotspur side in Sydney, Alonso confirmed that the Ukraine international would join the squad for the next stage of their overseas tour. “Yes, he is coming to Hong Kong, but I haven't spoken to him yet,” Alonso told reporters, while admitting the development was an unexpected boost. “Yeah, to be honest, we were not expecting to have this great news at this moment,” he said.

Managing expectations over the winger’s fitness.

Despite the excitement around his comeback, Alonso was quick to urge patience over Mudryk’s physical condition. The winger, who joined Chelsea from Shakhtar Donetsk in January 2023 for £62 million and has scored 10 goals in 73 appearances for the Blues, now faces a major challenge to get back to full match fitness after almost two years without a competitive game.

Alonso called for caution over the winger’s readiness, saying his current condition is still largely unknown. “It's too early to tell how he is in terms of fitness, in terms of the game time you need to be involved again, so it's still too early to tell,” the manager said. However, Alonso also stressed the sympathy the club has for Mudryk, recognising that the player has gone through an experience very few people can properly understand. “But we are happy for him, especially for him, because we are probably not able to understand what he has been through during this time and how he feels at the moment with the things he has had to cope with,” he added.

The challenge of training in isolation.

During his suspension, Mudryk was not allowed to enter Chelsea’s Cobham training ground or work with any official club staff. In order to keep himself as sharp as possible, the winger hired his own private coach and goalkeepers, and carried out training sessions at the facilities of non-league side Uxbridge. That solitary routine underlined his commitment, but Alonso warned that individual work cannot fully reproduce the demands and details of team football.

Alonso said the mental strength required to train alone for more than a year should not be overlooked, and he praised Mudryk’s professionalism through a very difficult spell in his career. “We expect that it will take time,” Alonso added. “He trained on his own every day, and I think it had to be really, really hard because he wanted to play football, he wanted to be part of a team, and he was not allowed to do that for such a long time. Afterwards we will see if it's quicker or slower, but we need to be aware of that. We want him to feel part of the team. Once he is with us, we will see how things develop.”

A crowded battle for starting places.

Mudryk’s return adds further competition to a Chelsea squad that has been strengthened heavily in the wide attacking areas during his absence. The Blues have spent significantly on attacking options, adding players such as Pedro Neto, Estevao Willian, Jamie Gittens and Geovany Quenda to compete for places on the flanks.