Former Manchester United defender turned TV pundit, Rio Ferdinand, has compared one of Chelsea’s young stars to potential United summer target, Jadon Sancho.
According to the Daily Star, Ferdinand, speaking on BT Sport before Chelsea’s Champions League Round of 16 second leg tie with Bayern Munich, suggested that Callum Hudson-Odoi could at one time be considered even better than Sancho.
Given how well the latter has done at Dortmund, now commanding a transfer fee of over €100m, such a statement might raise a few eyebrows, but Ferdinand believes a serious injury is what has curtailed the progress of the Blues’ winger.
“Callum Hudson-Odoi has been talked about at a young age, he had a bad achilles injury,” Ferdinand said.
“But as a young kid, Callum Hudson-Odoi was talked about on the levels, if not better, than Jadon Sancho.
“He hasn’t kicked on like Jadon. There’s confidence and stuff, but these are great opportunities for young players to come in and really let people know ‘yes I am capable of playing at this level’.
“I think Callum has been promising for a while now and we need to see a performance at this level now to really justify the talk and the commotion we heard beforehand, because he has got talent, there’s no doubting that.”
Now seemingly over his injury concerns, Hudson-Odoi needs to concentrate on ensuring the levels of his performance remain high.
If he’s able to convince Frank Lampard at club level, the manager has already shown that he’s happy to put younger players into his XI’s.
Gareth Southgate may well be keeping an eye on the 19-year-old’s progress too, so it’s in his own interests to get his head down and work hard.
Maybe he’ll even get back to Sancho’s level.