As English football prodigies go, Callum Hudson-Odoi was up there with some of the brightest hopes – an England Under-17 World Cup winner, in the Chelsea first team as a teenager and then, as his career took off, a target for German giants Bayern Munich.
Now he finds himself having to rebuild that glittering reputation at Nottingham Forest, where the underdog mentality will provide the perfect environment for a player many have written off.
Forest paid just £3 million to sign Hudson-Odoi, who ended his 16-year association with Chelsea this summer, and there is a sense that he could prove one of the bargains of the year if his former England coach Steve Cooper can get him firing again.
It has been quite a résumé already: he was the youngest player to make his debut for England in a competitive fixture, at 18 and 135 days, until Jude Bellingham came along the following year, and was on the bench for Chelsea’s 2021 Champions League triumph.
As Hudson-Odoi reflects on the ups and downs of his career, it is remarkable to consider he is still only 22.
“Everyone at Forest has been saying the same since I signed – it feels like I’ve been around for a long time,” he tells Telegraph Sport. “I’ve been playing from a very young age in Chelsea’s first team but I’m not even 23 until November.
“The journey has been up and down, a roller-coaster good and bad. Now I just want to make sure that my head is focused and I’m ready for every game. I’ve experienced so much in a space of time but there’s so much more to come. I’ve got so many years ahead of me.”
Hudson-Odoi is fully focused on the new chapter with Forest and his family will be travelling up from London to attend Monday’s home game against Burnley. Yet those memories of Chelsea will be impossible to wipe away after first joining the club’s revered academy at the age of six.
A direct winger with explosive acceleration, he was once regarded as one of the finest youngsters to emerge from Cobham, but this summer felt compelled to cut the cord. After being sent on loan to Bayer Leverkusen last season, his last league appearance for Chelsea came in January 2022 amid the chaos and churn of manager sackings and £1 billion spent on new players.
‘Leaving Chelsea was my decision but it was emotional’
Hudson-Odoi joins a list of academy graduates including Mason Mount, Ruben Loftus-Cheek and Fikayo Tomori to have departed the mothership.
“Chelsea has been my home for a very long time and knowing it was time to go was emotional,” he says. “It was difficult, we had conversations but I thought it was best if I leave. It was a mutual agreement, but I’d say it was more my decision.
“Forest is the right place for me to excel in my football, and do more than I probably could at Chelsea. I want to be playing as much as possible.”
Hudson-Odoi’s initial impact at Chelsea cannot be overestimated, and when he burst onto the scene in 2018 it appeared a golden future was assured.