Callum Hudson-Odoi scored two of England’s U21’s five goals against Austria, his second somehow outdoing his first. Chelsea are fortunate Gareth Southgate allowed Hudson-Odoi to stay with the junior side, despite the winger having outgrown it.
A decade or so from now, Callum Hudson-Odoi will share a banner at Stamford Bridge with Uli Hoeness. If not for Bayern Munich’s interest, Hudson-Odoi would never have had his breakthrough half-season for Chelsea starting last January. He probably would have checked in with his compatriots Jadon Sancho and Phil Foden, and taken any first-team offer that came in over the summer, understandably skeptical about his prospects at his boyhood club, even with Frank Lampard’s arrival. Danke, Herr Hoeness.
Hudson-Odoi’s performance for England’s U21 side against Austria showed the quality gap between him and the rest of the team, with the possible exception of Arsenal’s Eddie Nketiah, who played seven years at Chelsea’s academy.
His two goals belied his continuing return-to-play process. Hudson-Odoi is still less than six months out from rupturing his Achilles tendon. This places him at the end of the return-to-play process, where he is now subjecting the Achilles to the sort of extreme movements he will have to perform for 60+ minutes per game, 2-3 times per week, but doing them in less stressful, shorter or less frequent settings.
Hudson-Odoi played 87 minutes against Austria, four days after playing the first 45 minutes against Slovenia.
That is the second-highest density of minutes (132 in four days) that he has had this season, the most coming when he went 76 minutes in Premier League 2 on 21 September followed by a complete game against Grimsby Town in the Carabao Cup on 25 September (166 minutes in four days). He played less than 30 minutes in each of his next two games: one in the Premier League and one in the Champions League. Starting with that first Premier League game against Brighton, Hudson-Odoi has been playing every 4-5 games and gradually increasing the amount of minutes he plays in any span of consecutive games.
This shows very smart coordination between Aidy Boothroyd’s staff and Frank Lampard’s for managing his playing time, and with Gareth Southgate for his part in managing Hudson-Odoi’s workload.
Southgate did not need Hudson-Odoi for this break. Calling him up could have subjected him to the greater stresses of the first-team, or could have stranded him on the bench and arrested his return-to-play. By staying with the U21’s, Hudson-Odoi maintained his playing rhythm and a good undulation between the levels of play: from 80 minutes in the Premier League against Southampton on 6 October to his two progressive appearances with England’s U21’s.
As everyone’s reward, Hudson-Odoi showed the movement, explosiveness and pinpoint release that he had pre-injury, which is exactly what everyone wants to see at this stage. That it came against Austria’s U21 is less important than that it happened at all.