This season hasn’t panned out the way I would have liked it to, admits Callum Hudson-Odoi
Chelsea starlet Callum Hudson-Odoi has confessed that the 2019/20 season did not go exactly the way he imagined it would have but he’s looking towards the future. The 19-year-old was supposed to be amongst the leading stars for Chelsea this term but injuries and other issues affected his season.
Few players at Chelsea would have been as happy to hear about the appointment of Frank Lampard and the plan that the Blues’ legend had for the club than Callum Hudson-Odoi. The 19-year-old was heavily courted by Bayern Munich last season and reports indicated that the youngster was thinking about the move with him struggling to get game-time at Chelsea. However, following talks with Lampard, Hudson-Odoi opted to stay and rejected the £35 million move to Bayern Munich by signing a five-year deal with the Blues.
But while Tammy Abraham, Mason Mount, Reece James, Christian Pulisic and many others all got a chance to shine, Hudson-Odoi failed to make the same impact. He finished the Premier League season with just twelve starts and registered only nine goal contributions in 32 appearances, falling well short of what many expected him to reach. But the 19-year-old himself admitted that the season did not go the way he planned with injuries and other issues causing problems but he believes next season will be different.
"For me personally, I think it is not the season that I would have liked to have. I could have worked on so many aspects of my game to become a better player. I'm working hard every day and training hard every day but sometimes in a game, you want to score goals, assist goals, help the team as much possible, and I feel like this year I wasn't doing enough of that. So I feel myself, next season, when it comes, I have to try and get more goals and more assists, help the team as much as possible and hit the goals I set myself," Hudson-Odoi told ESPN.
“I think to myself that when in games, I've had a couple of chances where I know I should be hitting the target or scoring. To myself, I feel disappointed because I know I'm capable of scoring goals and capable of assisting goals so when I don't do it, I feel frustrated because I know what I can do and what I can't do. For me, it was more of a personal thing where, 'Cal, you can do better, you've got to keep going, keep working hard, try and get the goals and assists and help the team as much as possible.'"