Are Chelsea set to offer Callum Hudson-Odoi a new contract?

In what appears to be yet another minor blow to Bayern Munich’s potential summer transfer plans, the Mirror in England are reporting that Chelsea are on the verge of completing a new contract for starlet Callum Hudson-Odoi.

The 18-year-old has been linked with a move to Bayern for a couple of months now, but the Mirror suggest the Premier League side are ready to offer him a £100k-a-week contract to keep him at Stamford Bridge as he approaches the last year of his current contract. Chelsea are even prepared to offer him the number 10 shirt, which is currently occupied by Hazard. Hudson-Odoi might also be put off by the fact that Bayern have shown such keen interest in Manchester City’s Leroy Sane and Bayer Leverkusen’s Kai Havertz after he was one of their top transfer targets in the winter.

Hazard is likely to leave the club for Real Madrid and Maurizio Sarri has already told the club that he wants to leave, presumably to become Juventus’s new manger, so the dynamic has changed for Hudson-Odoi. He rarely saw consistent minutes under Sarri, but showed plenty of bright flashes when he did get time, prompting his first appearance for England in March. After making four consecutive Premier League starts towards the end of March and beginning of April, Hudson-Odoi experienced a massive setback when he ruptured his achilles tendon in a match against Burnley.

A faulty report?

Less than 24 hours after the report from the Mirror came out, Bild’s Christian Falk said the report was untrue, and that Bayern still have a chance of signing Hudson-Odoi this summer:

While all of the moving parts make sense as to why Hudosn-Odoi would choose to stay with Chelsea, his desire to leave London for Munich earlier on in the season can’t be disputed. He was clearly unhappy with Chelsea and even if Sarri was the majority of the problem for him, who is to say that the new manager would give him more time than Sarri did?

At Bayern, he still might not be the first option on either of the wings behind either Kingsley Coman or Serge Gnabry, but if Chelsea’s transfer ban is lifted, they’ll likely have a surplus of cash if they do, in fact, offload Hazard to Real Madrid so they can bring in a high caliber replacement.

Regardless, Chelsea seem fully committed to convincing Hudson-Odoi that he’s going to be a big part of the club’s future, so at this point, it will likely take a considerably high fee from Bayern to pry him away from Stamford Bridge.