Callum Hudson-Odoi and Bayern Munich batted eyes at each other last season. What if the Chelsea youngster was allowed to make that jump?
It was clear in preseason that Callum Hudson-Odoi was ready. With the World Cup stars gone, the young English winger was easily the best player in preseason. But Maurizio Sarri is not a manager that plays the youth and Hudson-Odoi arrived at January with little playing time that season.
He submitted a transfer request amidst Bayern Munich interest. The club refused all offers and demanded Sarri played the winger. The manager obliged, at least until Hudson-Odoi became injured and Sarri could stop pretending he wanted to play the kid.
But what if Chelsea had opted to let Hudson-Odoi go with the transfer request? Would anything have changed on Chelsea’s end? Would it on Hudson-Odoi’s?
Starting with Hudson-Odoi, he would have found playing time just as hard to come by in Germany as in England. Bayern Munich is stacked team and unlike at Chelsea, Hudson-Odoi would not have had the benefit of being “one of their own”. He goes to Bayern and gets a handful of games comparable to what he got when Chelsea demanded Sarri use him.
Historically, Bayern has a bad injury record that is often swept under the rug by their dominance. So Hudson-Odoi’s injury would likely still have shown up in data beforehand. That data would still likely be ignored and the winger would still likely be injured. The transfer ban and Frank Lampard saw to it that Hudson-Odoi would have a chance when he returned but it is unlikely that Bayern would have offered such an easy route.
The results on the Chelsea end do not change enough to make a difference. Nor does the transfer ban when Sarri still opts to quit. But it does affect how the youth view the team. Even with Lampard joining, Tammy Abraham does not see his chance at Chelsea coming anytime soon. He opts to leave for Aston Villa permanently. Several other academy players on the fence opt to depart as well.
Lampard is forced to use Olivier Giroud and Michy Batshuayi more in the absence of Abraham. Giroud is not a natural fit for Lampard’s tactics and Batshuayi is, well, Batshuayi. Chelsea finds themselves tumbling down the table and Lampard is forced to start dropping his younger players for more experienced alternatives.
They fail to change much of anything either. When the ban is lifted, Chelsea sits midtable. The Blues actually make transfer moves as Mason Mount and Fikayo Tomori are loaned out after Lampard’s struggles. The youth revolution, for all intents and purposes, is halted or over.
Chelsea was on the precipice with their youth when Hudson-Odoi submitted his transfer request. It was the only way he saw to get his career moving. Several youth would have kept a keen eye on it as some had already made the leap. Without the board’s intervention, it is entirely possible that many would have given up on the project with or without Lampard trying to change things.
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