Wonderkid of the Blues did not play as well as he would have liked despite those who were ahead of the struggle for form
Frank Lampard admits Callum Hudson-Odoi is playing better than ever as calls rise for him to be a regular Chelsea starter.
The 20-year-old has only started on two of Chelsea’s league games this season but has scored a goal every 64 minutes since Boxing Day.
The home side’s goals and assists come amid a run of poor form at Chelsea which has seen them drop from first place to seventh in the league.
Starting with a 1-0 win over Fulham, next is a trip to King Power Stadium to face Leicester City in third place and Lampard faced the calls to select Hudson-Odoi with Timo Werner, Kai Havertz and Christian Pulisic all out of shape.
“He’s definitely playing well and getting better and I think it’s a bit of a laziness, the one about where we score when he’s played. but he is directly involved in goals, assists and scoring, ”Lampard told reporters.
“I think those are good stats. But he, for me, makes help and scores goals, he plays at a pretty high level where we saw him last year, recovering from injuries. I think his courage to visually defeat his husband, one-on-one departure, which must have been about him, was not entirely there.
“We need to understand that because he is young and has come from a serious injury. Now we see him coming back and we see him running behind the line, so when he scores against Morecambe – I know it’s Morecambe, but he breaks the line and gets a goal.
“It makes that a lot more consistent now, and that’s what I ask of him. So his progress is there and he gets his opportunities and he gets more opportunities.
“At the end of the day, and I have said this after the game the other night, Christian Pulisic came to the club and, in the end, he had a really good record of goals and help – the best of all. career – by the end of the season.
“Hakim Ziyech has come in and it was very good for us. Callum picked up his game, so Callum gets his chances. There is no doubt about that because he plays well, he plays better than I saw him play for us and contributes a lot to it.
“That’s from his hard work and natural talent. It’s good to see. ”
Like the rest of the Premier League, the Blues are adapting to additional measures to combat the spread of coronavirus across the region, with a new and more contagious version of the disease emerging across society.
The lack of goal identification and interaction with the opponents came to the fore, with the UK Government pushing for English football to change.
One such step was told players not to exchange shirts, but pictured was Chelsea defender Thiago Silva throwing his jersey to a Brazilian employee at Craven Cottage Stadium at Fulham on Saturday.
Lampard will remind the 36-year-old defender of the rules of conduct despite his heart being in the right place to ensure a fan earns a precious memory.
“I’ll talk to Thiago. This happened when Everton played at Fulham and Richarlison gave his shirt to the same employee who requested it, ”Lampard continued. “Thiago asked for it after the game.
“The players are very aware of the new restrictions on players not changing shirts, not about staff, that is, players not changing shirts, which I think was all man sticks to it.
“Now I will talk to Thiago clearly just about changing shirts with anyone, at the moment this is not what we want to do because obviously we are in this Covid environment. But those rules vary greatly and it was very much an innocent thing. I will have a word with Thiago. “