What’s Happening With Callum Hudson-Odoi and How to Solve it
Introduction
The majority of Chelsea fans are calling next season a ‘make or break’ season for 20 year old winger, Callum Hudson-Odoi. It’s been a difficult ride at Chelsea, breaking into the 1st team at only 18 years of age and rupturing his achilles tendon during his impressive Europa League campaign under Maurizio Sarri.
There’s plenty of debates to be had about Hudson-Odoi and in this article I’ll be giving my opinion on some of them whilst getting into his profile and player habits. For me, he’s among the top 3 young talents in the league and it only sounds surprising because of the little amount of chances he’s had to prove himself.
The recent Athletic report has got a lot of Chelsea fans up on their feet when Simon Johnson stated that,
Insiders suggest that he (Hudson-Odoi) is in the best physical shape since he made it into the senior squad three years ago, is looking very sharp and showing explosive speed to take on opposing defenders
This article will include the following:
- Lack of game time
- Playing in the wrong position
- Why isn’t he scoring goals ?
- His attributes- strengths and weaknesses
- Statistical comparisons between other Chelsea attackers
- Where does he fit in our attack ?
Lack of Game Time
Hudson-Odoi only played 1054' minutes in 2020/21. The 2nd least amount of minutes out of all of Chelsea’s attackers this season.
As you can see in the visualization below (created by @topimpacat on twitter) we can see how the minutes Odoi has played is right side dominant. This is the primary factor of him not scoring so many goals.
Odoi’s output as a winger in all competitions this season:
LW: 7 appearances- 3 goals & 2 assists
RW: 14 appearances- 2 goals & 1 assist
Why does playing on the right affect his goal-scoring ?
The difference maker of a player’s ‘attacking’ dynamic is the angle they’re given to approach the goals with. Trent’s passing from deep and Havertz’s runs into the pockets are all examples. Currently, Hudson-Odoi is playing in a position which massively limits his angles as a goal threat from the wing.
We all talk about CHO’s finishing which I find misjudged and misunderstood. It reminds me a lot of Rashford’s finishing in his early years at Manchester United in terms of underdeveloped ball-striking in wide areas. If we take a look at all of the goals Odoi has scored they’re all placement shots in central area’s. In the shot map provided by understat, I’ve split the channel and wing with a blue line to represent the contrast of where he takes his shots from.
When I mention ball striking, his shooting technique is also a mixture of pulling shots off earlier than usual in order to get a late reaction from the keeper and this is why keepers get a slight hand to it and it then goes in. They mistime the shot reaction.
The green circles represent the goals he has scored in the league this season. What a surprise, all of his goals have come from central areas that are close to the goal.
Where has his attribute of running at defenders through his dynamism/explosiveness ?
Referring back to angles, confidence is key when it comes to taking on defenders. Hudson-Odoi’s angles are completely ruined when he’s playing at right wing-back because his main job is to hold width and positional rotations are harder to find in that position. His whole dynamic changes there due to how his body is naturally positioned to not take on players the way he normally does on the left.
However, the more he plays there the more his creativity expands. It increases the variation of his dynamics and helps him find different solutions making him a more complete player which could also be seen as a positive.
The final reason behind not having much explosiveness is that in an interview, Hudson-Odoi talks about how his major injury had caused him to have to change the way he runs and also gain the lost muscle in his calf. Without consistent minutes, how is he going to regain that confidence to do so ?
When I used to run, I used to run on my toes so I had to get used to a different kind of technique and figure out different ways to run
When I first came back I had a lot of thoughts in my head thinking am I going to be the player that I was, am I going to run the same, am I going to dribble players. Be explosive as I used to be. It’s an injury where it has taken a lot of muscle out of your calf
Strengths and Weaknesses
Hudson-Odoi is a very unique profile of an attacker. Firstly, he brings a whole new dynamic to any attack he’s included in. His ability to facilitate combination play whilst providing technical security during it is something every centre-forward or full-back would love to play with. He makes their job far easier.
Hudson Odoi is also a very clever dribbler, here’s a video of him explaining the importance of faints and keeping a close eye on the full backs foot for any movements and taking advantage of it when they aren’t in a balanced defensive stance.
Judging by the summer pictures, Odoi looks like he’s been focusing on developing his upper body strength. He can already shield the ball to a good standard but this may be due to the power he holds in his legs and not the strength. There must be a good balance there in order to reach a good level of PnP.
Another one of Odoi’s strengths is his ability to create from open-play. I’ve already talked about his combination play but the variation of deliveries always goes under the radar. Here’s a video I created highlighting his chance creation methods.
Other than experience, improving his ball striking and being slightly more aggressive there isn’t much he can do to improve and these will only come with consistent minutes.
Statistical Comparisons
Note: I’m somewhat new to using the tableu software and the data [via FBref] so if the visualizations aren’t easy on the eye or if I’m using any of the data incorrectly, please let me know.
Before I collected all the data I predicted for Hudson-Odoi’s metrics to be far higher in the chance creation scheme of things such as progressive passes, high SCA’s and crosses into the penalty area rather than his xG and shots per 90. It’s the most logical thing to predict after all my reasons on angles, patterns in his shot map and of course playing on the right.
The 6 main areas I’ll be focusing on are the following;
- Goal-Scoring
- Crossing
- Penalty Box provider
- Creativity
- Dribblers
- Progressiveness
In the first graph provided below, we get a very good idea of where the goals are coming from out of all of Chelsea’s attackers. We can see that Hudson Odoi specifically isn’t getting into the best positions to score but we ask ourselves how can he ?
Being limited into delivery positions instead of strong foot goal-scoring positions will obviously contribute to this.
Moving on to crossing, Hudson-Odoi is in his own bracket when it comes to this. This may just be because he’s crossing in a favourable position whilst holding width at wing-back but we shouldn’t take away how much of a dangerous crosser he is.
Odoi’s main crossing position is in between zone 1 and 4. The graph below shows that he finds the penalty box and provides passes there more than any other attacker. Again, this may just be due to him being a wing back as he gets more opportunities to make crosses but it’s still very promising.
It makes sense that the players who start off either deeper or wider than the other attackers are more creative but Hudson-Odoi is one of Chelsea’s most efficient passers. We need to put into context how the attackers Hudson-Odoi is feeding are massively under-performing their xG such as Werner- (-5.9), Havertz (-2.3) and Pulisic (-1.4). However, Hudson Odoi still slightly under-achieved his xA by -0.1.
Although I mentioned how playing on the left betters Hudson-Odoi dribbling angle and explosiveness, he’s a very promising dribbler. His close control shouldn’t be in doubt too, as a wing back one of the traits they should have is frequently carrying out progressive carries in order to maintain the attacking 5 shape to fulfill the 5 channels.
As I previously mentioned in the above point on dribbling, Hudson Odoi flourishes in that category. That’s what made him the perfect wing back profile when Tuchel first came in. Making progressive carries whilst having good ball security helps sustain attacks. The other wing back (Reece James) is slightly more passive and doesn’t make as many progressive passes as he doesn’t have the same winger instinct.
With the recent reports of Chelsea wanting a “clinical” number 9, the main name in question is Erling Haaland. The good thing about him is that he only needs half-chances and scraps to score goals. We’ll obviously provide far more than just this but who provides the most goal and shot creating actions from open play ?
Hudson-Odoi again is one of Chelsea’s best creative mechanisms who can supply balance to the front 3. In fact, Odoi actually ranks 1st in the+/- xG per 90 in terms of team success. Meaning that the team’s overall performance is better as we score more with him on the pitch.
It’s very important for our attackers to attack space. Hudson Odoi game is all about dynamics and he’s the one who helps keep the opposition in our box through simple feints and carries and releases the attackers whilst giving them ample space in front of them in the process
As I predicted, Hudson-Odoi is one of the lowest ranked goal scorers amongst Chelsea’s attackers but can you really blame him ?
He hardly makes positional rotations as a wing back and as I’ve mentioned plenty of times in this article, his shooting angles and dynamic runs aren’t as good on the right in comparison to the left.
Where he fits
If you’ve come this far, you’d know where I’d like him to fit and what personnel I’d like him to have around him.
I really hope Chelsea signs Haaland as he’d solve a lot of our goal-scoring problems and he’d be a valuable asset in transition. In our current attacking shape, I’d like this front 3…
The only downside is that there’s no Havertz. This is only because as JKFootball once mentioned, in order to be efficient in the attacking 3rd and sustain the attack, you must have good cross and half-space operators on either side. Mount can be both the player in the channel and crosser however we must understand that players aren’t just in one position. Rotations must always be made for fluidity and it helps to disorient the opposition’s blocks.
Another reason I like this attack is because one of Haaland’s traits is his urge to combine with attackers, Odoi could be the perfect player for this as he facilitates it well and rotations are easy to come by.
