Obstacles keep blocking Hudson-Odoi’s path back into Chelsea and England teams
https://theathletic.com/2189027/2020/11/10/hudson-odoi-limited-chelsea-matches/?source=emp_shared_article
It’s fair to say Callum Hudson-Odoi has had more enjoyable birthdays than his 20th on Saturday, when Frank Lampard let his third substitution go unused in the final minutes of Chelsea’s 4-1 dismantling of Sheffield United at Stamford Bridge. Then, in the hours after the game, details of a COVID-19 restriction-breaching meal with team-mate Fikayo Tomori were leaked from his private Snapchat account to a newspaper.
Lampard’s decision not to bring on Hudson-Odoi against Chris Wilder’s men is more understandable in context: sources have told The Athletic the winger had a slight knock and although he was ready to play if called upon, doing so would probably have constituted an unnecessary risk with victory secure.
What is harder to explain is why he has been relatively peripheral throughout a disjointed start to the 2020-21 season.
On the surface, there doesn’t seem to be much of an issue.
Hudson-Odoi has featured in nine of Chelsea’s 13 matches across all competitions. But only four of those appearances have been as a starter, only one of which came in the Premier League (the 4-0 win over Crystal Palace last month). Many of his cameos have been brief and his total of 423 minutes played is only slightly more than that of Hakim Ziyech (373 minutes), who wasn’t fit to make his debut following a summer move from Ajax until the week after that Palace game.
You might argue Hudson-Odoi’s level of involvement has been reasonable so far: he is a winger barely out of his teens competing to play for an elite club who signed three new attackers at a combined cost of more than £150 million in the summer transfer window. Kai Havertz, Timo Werner and Ziyech were all bought to be key components of the team Lampard is building, and part of that process involves giving all of them extended minutes on the pitch to adapt to their new roles, team-mates and opponents.
Heading into this international break, the Premier League table certainly offers no riposte to Lampard’s approach. Chelsea are three points off top spot, with their only defeat coming at the hands of champions Liverpool in September. A more consistent approach to tactics and team selection has yielded four consecutive wins across all competitions and six clean sheets in eight games. Werner and Ziyech, in particular, are already making decisive impacts in the final third.
Hudson-Odoi, meanwhile, could be forgiven for wondering if his best window to take a significant leap forward at Chelsea this season has already closed. He went into 2020-21 as the only available true winger in the squad, with both Christian Pulisic and Ziyech injured and Lampard favouring Werner as a central striker in place of Tammy Abraham. Yet in the opening weeks, Lampard instead opted to deploy Mason Mount in wide areas as he attempted to balance his new-look team.
The visit of the Championship side Barnsley for a Carabao Cup tie in September was presented as Hudson-Odoi’s big chance to impress. “We’ve played Timo Werner out wide, but the only natural winger who is fit at the minute is Callum,” Lampard said ahead of that game. “He has to show in every minute, on and off the ball, what he can do for the team and at the minute, that’s the position Callum is at. He had an early breakthrough in his career because of his talent, he’s had an injury and now I want to see him flourish again.”
Hudson-Odoi underwhelmed on the night, however, even as Chelsea won 6-0, giving off the understandable impression of a player trying too hard for his own good. Three days later, he made a much better impact, combining impressively with Havertz to score after being brought on in his favoured left-wing position as a half-time substitute against West Bromwich Albion. Lampard rewarded him with starts against Tottenham Hotspur in the Carabao Cup and Palace in the league, providing him with some momentum heading into last month’s international break.
Pulisic’s return to full fitness changed everything. The American came into the starting XI at Hudson-Odoi’s expense for the 3-3 draw with Southampton as the season resumed after the October internationals and kept his place in the subsequent games against Sevilla and Manchester United, with Hudson-Odoi clocking a total of one minute from the bench across the three matches. Lampard’s desire to give his most dazzling attacker last season an opportunity to play his way back into prime form was understandable, but the nature of his relegation only served to underline how stiff a challenge Hudson-Odoi faces to consolidate any upward progress in this squad.
Having marked his fourth start of the season with his second goal against Krasnodar in the Champions League, Hudson-Odoi had reason to hope Lampard would call upon him when Pulisic tweaked a hamstring during the pre-match warm-up against Burnley at Turf Moor three days later. Instead, it was Werner — initially given a well-earned rest after a heavy run of minutes — who came into the starting line-up to the left of Abraham and Ziyech in an expansive 4-3-3.
Chelsea arguably produced their three most complete performances of the season in the week heading into this international break, led by that dynamic Werner-Abraham-Ziyech front line. Hudson-Odoi was involved as a substitute against both Burnley and Rennes, but came on with the score 3-0 in each game. It’s not always easy for an attacker to impress in a situation where cruising to the final whistle over the final 15 minutes or so is all that is required.
By the time club football resumes on November 21, Havertz’s period of isolation after contracting COVID-19 is likely to be over, and Pulisic will be available again sooner rather than later. In the meantime, Hudson-Odoi will play out the international break as the headline name for England’s under-21s while many of his peers at youth level, at Chelsea and elsewhere, make up Gareth Southgate’s senior squad.
It’s not easy to see a path to fulfilling his ambition of playing at next summer’s European Championship as things stand.
There have been no indications yet that Hudson-Odoi has allowed his frustration to show. He is keeping his head down and focusing on maintaining a high level of performance and fitness in training. It is understood no explanations have been sought as to why he remains at the bottom of the pecking order out wide, and none has been offered beyond Lampard’s public challenge ahead of the Barnsley game. When he plays, his attacking metrics stand up well to comparison. It is a small sample size of data, but that’s kind of the point.
Hudson-Odoi occupies a strange place now. We are barely a month on from Bayern Munich, reigning European champions, presenting Chelsea with an offer of a season-long loan with an option to make the move permanent for £70 million next summer. It wasn’t an obligation to buy, but it was still a startling offer within the context of a transfer market in which most of the continent’s leading clubs were warier than ever of committing to huge deals — and a timely reminder that Hudson-Odoi’s talent is admired far beyond west London.
Chelsea rationalised turning it down by insisting that Hudson-Odoi remained integral to their plans, and that he would be given the opportunity by Lampard to spread his wings. This is an elite talent they have moulded at their Cobham HQ since the age of seven, nursed back from a serious injury and committed to a long-term contract that made him one of the highest-paid teenage footballers in the world.
Fulfilling that potential at Stamford Bridge should be regarded as the dream scenario by all parties.
That deal, which runs until June 2024, gives Chelsea the control and security they lacked when Hudson-Odoi was hoping to impress Lampard’s predecessor Maurizio Sarri and Bayern first made their interest known. But as long as his development path remains curiously fragmented, don’t expect the speculation about his future to go away.
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