As if Chelsea’s transfer window and Xabi Alonso’s squad remodelling were not complex enough, another puzzle piece has dropped in out of the blue.Three and a half years after his initial signing in a deal worth up to €100million (£89m), and more than one year and eight months since his last appearance for the club, Mykhailo Mudryk finds himself starting from scratch at Chelsea.Mudryk has not played for Chelsea since November 28, 2024, and was provisionally suspended by the Football Association on December 17 after an adverse finding in a routine urine test. He was then formally charged with violating anti-doping rules in June 2025 and it emerged in April this year that he was appealing a four-year ban handed down by the FA.On Friday afternoon, the FA and Chelsea confirmed that anti-doping disciplinary proceedings against the 25-year-old have been resolved.The FA said Mudryk has accepted that he had committed an anti-doping rule violation and the period of ineligibility. However, after changes to anti-doping rules, the concentration of meldonium (a banned substance) that was found in Mudryk’s sample would not have been reported as a positive test today. Because of this detail, and “other circumstances of the case”, the FA said the proceedings have now been resolved and Mudryk can return to competition “with immediate effect”.Mykhailo Mudryk playing for Chelsea in March 2024 (Glyn Kirk/AFP via Getty Images)First and foremost, it will come as an enormous relief to Mudryk, who has had what was at one point a very promising career put on hold.“I am grateful that this process has reached a conclusion, that I have been cleared to return to football and that I can now look ahead to my future,” he wrote on Instagram. “This has been the most difficult period of my career.”The worst, for Mudryk, is over — but resuming his career will not be straightforward.So much has changed at Chelsea during Mudryk’s absence.The last head coach he played under, Enzo Maresca, departed and Mudryk has missed the entirety of Liam Rosenior’s short tenure and Calum McFarlane’s interim spells either side of it.Left-sided forwards Jamie Gittens, Alejandro Garnacho, and Morgan Rogers have joined the club — although Garnacho has now been loaned to Aston Villa with a conditional obligation to buy.The fact that a player recruited partly to fill the gap left by Mudryk has come and gone during his absence speaks to how long he has been away.Alejandro Garnacho (Shaun Botterill/Getty Images)Chelsea’s statement on Friday said their focus is supporting Mudryk’s reintegration, which is expected to begin with him joining their pre-season tour in Hong Kong next week. But how does Mudryk now fit into a squad that had been constructed to cope without him?