It seems to be a debate that has popped up amongst online sites again over the last couple of days, the ‘should Callum Hudson-Odoi have gone with the England U21 squad’ thing again.
It appears that the talk has begun again after the success of Conor Gallagher, Hudson-Odoi’s Chelsea team mate who got switched from the England U21 team to the senior team during this international break to then earn his first cap for them on Monday night.
Whilst that is a great achievement for Gallagher, the two stories are not really comparable. Hudson-Odoi already has 3 senior England caps to his name, moving back to the U21s is moving backwards for him. He is a forward-thinking positive guy that has faith in his own ability, so much faith that he is concentrating on making it back in the England senior team but for him, that doesn’t involve dropping levels again.
He’s too good for the U21 level, and he is also mature enough to make his own decisions and a decision that he feels is the right one. It’s probably about time people just accepted that and stopped talking negative about it.
Just because Gallagher got called into the senior England squad this break, it doesn’t mean that Hudson-Odoi would have been. Gallagher got called into the senior squad for his club form, for his regular minutes on loan at Crystal Palace playing well, scoring goals, assisting, and being consistent. He would have been next on the list to be called into the England senior squad to cover injuries regardless of whether he was currently with the U21s or not.
Hudson-Odoi makes decisions that he believes are best for his Chelsea future, and that is what he puts first. He believed it was better for him to stay at Chelsea rather than go out with the U21s. That’s his decision that he felt is the best one for him right now. And I totally agree with that.
He isn’t just a kid any more, he has matured and has a great attitude to develop himself. He’s just got himself back in the more regular plans of Thomas Tuchel at Chelsea, just imagine if he had gone and got injured for the next four weeks in a pointless U21 game, he’d have been setback months once again.
