Chelsea manager Frank Lampard has explained his thinking after dropping in-form young winger Callum Hudson-Odoi yet again for yesterday’s game against Fulham.
Despite long looking a big prospect at Chelsea, Hudson-Odoi has struggled to play regularly under both Lampard and his predecessor Maurizio Sarri, and many fans may well be baffled by this decision-making.
MORE: Frank Lampard consoles Timo Werner
In recent times, the England international has looked worthy of a place in Chelsea’s starting XI, but it just doesn’t seem to be happening at the moment.
Lampard didn’t exactly give the most encouraging comments after the game as he addressed the Hudson-Odoi issue on Sky Sports, as quoted by the Metro.
The English tactician made it clear he had other promising players that he felt he couldn’t leave out, and also seemed keen to have Hudson-Odoi as an option as an impact sub.
“It was difficult and I was specifically talking about Callum there because Callum’s form recently, there has been a real uplift in it and that is part of his development,” Lampard said.
“Now he’s coming on and going by people and showing confidence. A lot of that will be down to his injury he had to get over last season.
“But Hakim gives us something different, he was outstanding in the period he was fit in the period of us being on a really good run, Christian always is a big threat for us.
“When I have the three wingers fit there’s one who can’t start the game, but they must come on and impact the game because you generally make substitutions with wingers.
“I had Leicester in mind, I’ll have to see how the players react over the next day or two, but in this busy, busy period the players will have to accept sometimes being an impact and then coming in and showing [their quality].
“I’ve got to say with Callum I’m delighted with how he’s playing at the minute, he’s a great example of someone who is approaching it all in the right way and he’ll get many, many minutes.”
The youngster will no doubt want to be more than that for Chelsea, so it remains to be seen how these comments will go down with him.
CHO must get enough time to play yesterday he brought a good cross …that resulted to the goal
Cullum hudson- odoi to start against leicester hope james is fit