Sarri says that Callum Hudson-Odoi should be happy with his playtime
Chelsea starlet Callum Hudson-Odoi has been linked with a move to Bayern Munich in January due to lack of regular minutes but manager Maurizio Sarri has suggested that the 18-year-old should be happy with his playtime at Stamford Bridge.
Hudson-Odoi, who was a part of the England team that won the 2017Â FUFA U17 World Cup in India, is held in very high regard at Chelsea but has made only 6 appearances across all competitions. Only one of those six appearances has come in the Premier League, which was a cameo in Chelsea’s 2-1 victory at Watford before he was taken off due to a hamstring injury.
However, Sarri believes that Hudson-Odoi has had more first-team action than rest of the 18-year-olds in the other leagues across Europe.
“In Europe, there are few players, 18 [-year-old] players, with eight matches at this level,” Sarri said.
“So, Hudson-Odoi I think in this season played six, seven official matches in Europe, so I think that he has to be lucky. He is not lucky. He is good.
“I think that he is a very good player, the potential is for becoming a great player, and now he has to improve.
“With the ball, he is a very good player. He has to improve, I think, in movement without the ball. As a winger, he has to improve in the defensive phase, but he has the potential to become a very important player, not only for the English football I think but for the European football.
“It’s not easy. It’s not easy at this level to take the young players from the academy and he’s ready to play, not only here, everywhere in Europe.
“Sometimes there is one, two young players in Barcelona, from the academy, sometimes one, two at Real Madrid, zero in Juventus, zero in Paris Saint-Germain.
“It’s not easy, and I think that we are lucky because we have [Ethan] Ampadu, we have [Andreas] Christensen, we have Hudson-Odoi, so we are lucky.
“Take four players in the academy, we are really very lucky, or the academy is very good.”
