I WANT OUT!

Chelsea st arlet Hudson- Odoi begs to leave as Bayern will let him play

CALLUM HUDSON-ODOI wants Chelsea to allow him to leave this week in a £35 million move to Bayern Munich insisting that he needs to play in order to develop as a footballer.

The 18-year-old, who is only now getting his chance under Maurizio Sarri since Bayern demonstrated their interest in him, wants to join the Bundesliga champions as they are in a rebuilding process, with wide players Arjen Robben and Franck Ribery quitting at the end of the season.

Bayern want Hudson-Odoi to be part of their immediate future, whereas Chelsea, who have signed wide player Christian Pulisic for £58m, have previously stressed the need for patience.

Chelsea want to keep Hudson-Odoi and have urged him to sign a new deal, as his current contract runs out in 2020. The club have indicated they will offer him a five-year contract but specific f i nancial detail s have not been discussed because the focus has been on where the player can develop best. Having seen his friend Jadon Sancho, also 18, thrive at Borussia Dortmund, Hudson-Odoi has come to believe that the Bundesliga offers a better pathway than Chelsea. As such, it seems unlikely he will sign a deal, meaning Chelsea’s best chance of making significant money is to sell him this January as his value will plummet with just one year left on his contract.

When Hudson- Odoi signed his first professional deal in 2018, his advisors made it clear that they would only commit up until 2020 as they were concerned at Chelsea’s poor record of bringing through youth-team players.

THERE has been a growing feeling among those who follow Chelsea that selling Willian would be no bad thing. Perhaps they will rethink.

Not so much on the grounds of his wider performance — there wasn’t much in it, really. Except, that is, for one moment of such wonderful quality that it won a game that was fast turning into an embarrassment for Chelsea.

It came after 57 minutes with the score at 1-1. Chelsea were flopping about the place, not just struggling with their finishes, which has been a theme of late, but not creating much, either. And then the ball reached Willian out on the left without much on. A blink later and it had been lashed across goal and inside the far post.

Quite something, that, and worth watching if it flashes up. Worth fighting for, too, if you look at the bigger picture with this player. Granted, he has not quite sustained his best this campaign and £50million is an awful lot for a 30-year-old with only 18 months to run on his contract.

Cashing in might well be the best bet. But not many players can do what Willian is able to do with relative ease when the mood takes him and that, really, is why Maurizio Sarri’s side won this match.

For a while that didn’t look likely, such was their performance after taking an early lead through Pedro. That should have been enough, given how poor Newcastle have been this season, but it is hard to t a ke much f o r gr a nt e d wit h Chelsea at the moment, because with 11 goals in their previous 10 games, they have been limping a little. Results have been trickling in, but a struggle nonetheless.

And so it played out in this game. They were strangely flat, indecisive, unable to accelerate past a jog, and so a Newcastle fan base that started the game with the usual insults at Mike Ashley — who was present — started to believe.

With that, the side grew and got themselves level through Ciaran Clark. For a brief moment it seemed they might even go ahead, but that would be pushing it. Their season has been wretched, after all, and again this match turned against them, with Willian’s brilliance.

That sole contribution means five wins in seven for Chelsea and only one win in nine for Newcastle, whi c h woul d h a v e b e e n the prediction of most at the start of play. Just look at the team sheets, if not the form.

Sarri made three changes to the Chelsea side beaten by Tottenham in the Carabao Cup — David Luiz came in for Andreas Christensen at centre half, Mateo Kovacic went on the left of the midfield three in place o f Ro s s Ba r k l e y and Pedro started in attack ahead of Callum Hudson-Odoi. Nice options to have.

Rafael Benitez’s selection hinted at an altogether tougher life. We know about his difficulties, partially because he discusses them so frequently, but also because they are so painfully obvious to the naked eye. They reek of neglect and the reminder comes each time Benitez files his team — this one showed a collective of 11 men that cost around £25m less than Chelsea’s £70m goalkeeper.

The opening goal for Chelsea was delightful, with David Luiz dropping a long ball behind Clark and Pedro controlling with his right and lobbing Martin Dubravka with his left for his seventh goal of the season. Lovely stuff, even if Benitez’s analytics will likely nose on why Pedro was allowed to run untracked between Matt Ritchie and Clark.

At that stage, all was rosy for Chelsea, a goal to the good against limited opposition. But the mediocrity that followed was alarming. Other than a header sent over the bar by Luiz, they offered almost nothing of note.

That allowed Newcastle some confidence and having taken the sting out of the game, they gradually started to threaten. It began with a few forward forays, continued with a near miss from Ayoze Perez and culminated with the equaliser, scored by Clark with a fine header from Ritchie’s corner.

By the close of the half, Newcas- tle were the more likely to score. How’s that for a tale in defied expectations?

Chelsea started the second with a little more verve but showed nothing even approaching the quality Willian delivered with his goal. Eden Hazard was at its root in so much as he sucked in three men to block his path to the Newcastle area, and that allowed space to Willian on his left. With a touch he got a slither of space next to DeAndre Yedlin and his finish — a curler across goal and inside the far post — was marvellous.

And reason enough to block any advances.