Bayern Munich are stepping up their chase of Chelsea starlet Callum Hudson-Odoi with an increased bid of £35 million.
Chelsea have already rejected lower bids with big future plans for the forward who has impressed in the Blues first-team this season.
At just 18 years of age, Hudson-Odoi has grabbed the attention of many, including the German giants who now pursue his signature.
Hudson-Odoi wouldn’t be the first British starlet to make the move to the Bundesliga to continue his development with players like Jadon Sancho and Oliver Burke heading in that direction in recent years with varying success.
Sancho’s success with Borussia Dortmund has probably done Bayern Munich a favour in making the path appear much more attractive than it might have in recent years.Sancho made a bold decision to give up on Manchester City amid a lack of opportunity and he’s gone on to flourish in the Bundesliga.
The story is a little different for Callum Hudson-Odoi, who, at the age of just 18, is getting opportunities with the Chelsea first-team. He’s already made eight appearances this season, though only one of those has been a Premier League fixture.
Though, he’s still very young and you have to be careful how expose talents at a tender age. He is, at least, not being loaned out like so many other Chelsea youngsters and Maurizio Sarri clearly sees him as part of his plans.
Even if he did opt to move to Bayern Munich, it’s unlikely he would start on a regular basis in the league, at least not this season. And there’s nothing to say he won’t be a much bigger part of Chelsea’s plans next season when he’s had the right amount of exposure this term.
From Chelsea’s side of things, they simply have to keep hold of Hudson-Odoi. They know they don’t have enough local talent, they know their youth system hasn’t been productive enough for them. It has been productive, it’s produced a vast array of talent who are playing throughout the Premier league and the Championship.
However, they also need it to work for themselves beyond financial incentives, they need it to provide players good enough to represent their own club. Hudson-Odoi is clearly a talent worthy of doing that and that’s been seen by Sarri, who is a vastly experienced manager, one of the top 25 managers in world football. Bayern Munich have also seen that.
Hudson-Odoi is a local, London boy, and this is a rare opportunity, in the years to come, to have a starting first-team player who is from the local area, and that’s something that doesn’t come along to often for bigger clubs these days. And with that in mind, £35 million or any other amount of money isn’t worth giving up the talent.
For Hudson-Odoi, the decision is a little more complicated. He’s seen many of his friends and predecessors depart the club on loan. Many who came before him completed a plethora of loan spells before leaving the club permanently having not had a sniff of first-team football.
He’ll be fearing becoming the next of those players and with the emergence of Jadon Sancho, who has grabbed an opportunity with both hands, the opportunity will be a tempting one.
However, while he’s getting opportunities, it may be an opportunity worth passing up on.If he wasn’t getting any opportunities, it would make sense, but this is an 18-year-old who has already represented Chelsea at the European and on the Premier League stage. Few youngsters have been given such opportunities in recent years.
And that shows you just how much Chelsea and Maurizio Sarri think of Hudson-Odoi.If things change, there’ll be plenty of opportunities for this talented youngster to move on from Stamford Bridge.
But at the moment, Chelsea think the world of the forward and for as long as that’s the case, Hudson-Odoi is better served remaining where he is.
