Callum Hudson-Odoi: The King Of The Forest
Callum Hudson-Odoi is refusing to let his departure from Chelsea stop him from becoming a top footballer in the coming years, and he is proving a point to his former club every time he steps foot out on a football pitch. The London-born winger put a dagger in the heart of the Anfield faithful at the weekend, becoming one of three footballers who have scored a winning goal at the stadium while Virgil Van Dijk has been on the pitch in the last number of years in the Premier League.
Forest fans get that feeling of excitement every time Hudson-Odoi gets the ball. He’s the type of player that gets you off your seat, but more than getting you off your seat, he’s proving he can now keep you off your seat with his end product, which is slowly becoming one of the most effective in the division.
The Forest winger was the youngest player to ever feature in a competitive international for England at the time of his debut and was wanted by a number of top clubs around Europe, with Bayern Munich especially taking a very keen interest in his services.
Hudson-Odoi, Chelsea Days & Injury Issues:
“It takes a lot of muscle out of your calf and other areas of your body. You don’t feel the same. I don’t think you ever will. I pushed everything daily to make sure I was coming back and injury free. But niggles happen, things happen.” – Callum Hudson-Odoi On Achilles Injury.
Hudson-Odoi was a force in his early ventures in the Chelsea side. Since his debut in January 2018 up until November 2020, he was the club’s second-highest goal scorer in Europe alongside Olivier Giroud with six goals. He became the second youngest player to assist a goal in three consecutive appearances in the Premier League in October 2019, with Michael Owen being the only player younger than him to achieve that feat. He also became the youngest player to score their first Premier League goal for Chelsea in January 2020 at 19y 65d since Carlton Cole did it in 2002, showcasing just how talented of a player he was at such a young age.
Frank Lampard was particularly glowing towards the potential of the player during his time at the club. The former manager hailed the winger a ‘special talent’ during his tenure as manager and felt he would have a massive future at Chelsea as time went on.
Many have wondered why Hudson-Odoi never ended up flourishing at Chelsea, but those who are familiar with the situation will know the circumstances that surrounded the wingers issues at the club. At the end of the 18/19 season under Maurizio Sarri, Hudson-Odoi ruptured his achilles tendon. This was an injury that would plague him for seasons to come, as he was also out for a period with his achilles in the 21/22 season that halted his progress after an impressive return in the 19/20 and 20/21 campaigns under Thomas Tuchel and Frank Lampard.
In fact, in reference to the 19/20 season, by January 2020, Callum Hudson-Odoi had been directly involved in 11 goals in just 13 starts at Stamford Bridge, scoring five goals and assisting six. Going further back to April 2019, Hudson-Odoi had been directly involved in nine goals in just nine starts for Chelsea since his debut, another impressive statistic to showcase the quality and output of the player prior to his injuries.
Unfortunately, achilles injuries are famously difficult to recover from. Former Brazilian footballer Adriano had his career halted due to an injury to the back of his foot, with the player himself detailing that he knew as soon as he popped it that his time in football was over.
“When I popped my Achilles in 2011? Man, I knew that’s when it was over for me, physically. You can get surgery and rehabilitate it and try to carry on, but you will never be the same. My explosiveness was gone. My balance was gone. Shit, I still walk with a limp. I still have a hole in my ankle.”
“Man, what happened to Adriano? Brother, it’s simple. I have a hole in my ankle, and one in my soul.”
It’s not just recovering from the injury initially, it’s retraining the foot, retraining your mind, and retraining the confidence you have in your body to avoid something like that happening again. This was all part of the journey for Callum.
Unfortunately, during this recovery, he was still suffering from other injuries that were ultimately holding him back even further. The 23-year-old contracted COVID back in March 2020 and attributes some of the issues he had after his diagnosis to the virus, despite making a full recovery from the illness at the time.
Prior to re-injuring his achilles in the 2022 season, the player tweaked a nerve in his back, which affected his ability to retain muscle in his body and ultimately contributed to the injury that ended his season in March after a game against Luton Town in the cup. The collection of issues led him to lose strength and speed in key areas of his body, which effected his game immensely.
“It was a weird one. It was a neurological thing where I had a tweaked nerve in my back and it stemmed all the way down through my body, so it then became difficult for me to retain muscle. There was no power really in my legs and everything was like ‘woah’. I was trying to pass the ball 10 yards but I had no power and I couldn’t even do it.
“I think it was also a post-coronavirus thing from December, which I couldn’t believe because it had been such a long time before. The issue started with my Achilles and then I was trying to use other parts of my body to make up for it, so for example when I was running I wasn’t running on my toes as much because my Achilles power wasn’t that strong.”
Despite the original Achilles injury happening in 2019, it still affected the winger years on. It was something he had to overcome to get to where he is today, and that would have taken a lot of mental fortitude and focus, especially considering the media are not so kind to English players who seem out of form.
They don’t take into account the issues that may be going on behind the scenes, instead hoping to pedal whatever narrative they can to sell their newspapers on a daily to weekly basis. Situations like this have been seen with the likes of Marcus Rashford, Jadon Sancho, and Harry Maguire most famously.
Not many would have mentioned Hudson-Odoi’s struggles when judging him during that period, but they are important, and they deserve to be identified when judging the young player’s career so far.
Injury issues are the plague of football, and they’ve put many great players careers in jeopardy over the long, illustrious history of the beautiful game. Callum Hudson-Odoi was a victim of his career being halted by injury, but he’s proven he will not be a victim of it stopping him from achieving greatness.
System Dillema’s: The Wing-Back Days
As well as the injury issues during his time at the club, there was also the fact that Thomas Tuchel deployed a system at Chelsea that did not play to the strengths of the winger. Tuchel, renowned for his defensive structure, tried to put Odoi into the wing-back role at times during his managerial reign in London, a position the player was not accustomed to or comfortable with playing. Despite this, Hudson-Odoi remained one of the best creators in the division, contributing to the creation of more shots per 90 than Trent Alexander-Arnold and also having the fourth-best shot creation metrics per 90 in the entire division with 4.77.
This period at the club, despite the winger having good moments, was a difficult one to navigate, and in a sense, prior to the injuries ultimately gave him indications he would eventually have to move on, although he does state that playing as a wingback did ultimately become something that made him a better forward in the long run.
Hudson-Odoi has insisted there was no ill will towards the German and merely felt he was best used as a pure attacker, as opposed to the hybrid roles he was being tasked with doing during that campaign.
Away From Home In Cologne:
The loan at Bayer Leverkusen came next, and it was the first time the 23-year-old had lived anywhere outside London in his life. It was a new experience, a new environment, and a different chapter in such a young career. The key during this loan was to play in a team where he felt wanted and appreciated. Game time was difficult to come by in Germany, with the player living in Cologne during his season-long stint in the country, but that was his main goal when joining the club despite the way it worked out. To play for a team where he felt valued. To play in a side where he felt wanted.
In truth, the loan at Leverkusen may not have worked out the way he initially envisioned, but it was an important experience. German clubs play football differently to those in England, and Hudson-Odoi got to learn a different way of playing than he would have been accustomed to at home. Under Sarri, Conte, and Tuchel, defensive shape was paramount. In Germany, fast breaks and quick players were vital, and Hudson-Odoi fit this bill and then some. Playing in this manner and thriving in a side that prioritized fast breaks is likely to have prepared him for the next move to the team that has molded him into the player everyone felt he could become at Chelsea.
Directness is something he has praised Xabi Alonso for unlocking in him, and as he’s showcased in the last two season’s, he is one of the most effective and direct wingers in the league once he gets going. Nottingham Forest thrive on directness and fast breaks with Anthony Elanga and Odoi, and they are truthfully wingers defenders are petrified of facing.
“The last couple of seasons I was not so direct, “so I felt I could be more direct on the ball, try to create more problems for the defense. This season, I have had that feeling of getting back to my sharp feeling and causing problems, taking on people, trying to create chances, trying to get goals and assists.” – Callum Hudson-Odoi
As well as becoming more direct, he credits his time in Germany with restoring that confidence he may have lost at Chelsea and, most importantly, making him feel like Callum Hudson-Odoi once again.
King Of The Forest:
Since joining Forest, Callum Hudson-Odoi has become a true threat on the left wing. He is one of the key reasons behind the club remaining in the division last season, and his numbers last year grew to heights in the Premier League he’s never reached before. The winger scored eight goals in the league, including a run of three straight games in which he scored against Newcastle United, West Ham United, and Bournemouth. He also got an assist against Brentford within that five-game stint, with Arsenal in between being the only game he failed to get a contribution in within that run of fixtures.
Scoring that screamer against his old club Chelsea would have been a bittersweet moment, and not one he would have enjoyed entirely despite the way he left the club. The player was at the club since he was a young boy, and there is always likely to be a huge amount of mutual respect between the fans and the player for his services during his time there. Many Chelsea fans still to this day question why the winger was sold, with many feeling he is streets ahead of the options currently available to manager Enzo Maresca, despite around £1 billion being spent since he departed at the beginning of 2022.
In terms of Forest being a match made in heaven, the conversation of directness comes up yet again. As previously mentioned, Hudson-Odoi learned how to be a more direct player during his time in Germany, with Alonso being a huge part of that. Last season in the Premier League, only Liverpool and Bournemouth had more shots from fast breaks than Nottingham Forest. What’s even more incredible is, and it’s hard to say if this was something the player thought of prior to joining the club, but the season before Forest were also in the top three clubs within the league when it came to shots from fast breaks.
The statistic is used to showcase that when you put a player in a system that suits him and brings the best out of him, while also showing him a level of appreciation and making him feel wanted, you can create magic. That’s the word you could use to describe Hudson-Odoi at Forest, and despite all the criticism’s levelled at the club in recent years for their business in the transfer market, the signings of Elanga and Odoi, two players that fit their system like a glove, are true master strokes.
It feels like it’s no longer a case of what could have been with Hudson-Odoi; slowly but surely, the focus is switching to what he can be, and clubs in the Premier League are paying attention. Various reports have suggested the winger was wanted by a number of teams within the league this season, with Tottenham Hotspur, amongst others, said to have shown a keen desire to bring him into their club during the window.
The feeling is that it won’t be long before he’s at a top six club again; the only question is which one? Manchester United may be interested in a player of Odoi’s qualities, and Chelsea may be looking at the player and wondering why they ever parted ways in the first place. The important thing to point out is that amidst all this interest and admiration, the player is enjoying his football again. He’s playing with a freedom that is wonderful to see, and above all else, he has something that may be one of the most underrated qualities in the entire world of football: playing the game with a smile on your face. Callum Hudson-Odoi, welcome back; the Premier League missed you.
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