Will Callum Hudson-Odoi ever beat Raheem Sterling to the England XI?

Callum Hudson-Odoi is a marvellous player, however, he will face a hard time beating Raheem Sterling to the starting XI for England…

Friday night saw a magnificent display from Manchester City’s Raheem Sterling for England, as they beat the Czech Republic by a scoreline of 5-0. This scoreline will give them plenty of confidence, but the hat-trick will have done Sterling the world of good.

In case you didn’t know, Sterling is seen as a scapegoat by the English media. This means that whenever England lose, the bad press is aimed at Sterling more often than not. This is weird because Sterling is one of, if not the best player available to the national team; Gareth Southgate knows that more than anyone.

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Part of the reason why he is starting to impress on the international stage is that he now faces rather strong competition in Callum Hudson-Odoi. The Chelsea forward has been in sensational form under Maurizio Sarri, hence his first England callup coming so soon.

He was substituted on in the second half for Sterling, which could be a tale of his international career early on. While he seems to be picking up plenty of game time with Chelsea, the England national team is a different kettle of fish when it comes to wide-men. They have Jadon Sancho and Raheem Sterling, two of the best wingers in the world right now.

However, this could be seen as a good thing. I mean, Hudson-Odoi is learning from these two AND Eden Hazard. All of them combined are surely going to make the youngster blossom into a star, even if it is until the end of the season.

Hudson-Odoi is a smart player. He does like to bring out the odd skill move, but he knows exactly when to do so and he executes them to perfection. I would say that it would be nice to see him getting on the scoresheet more often, but he is certainly working on that. The youngster has five goals and two assists this term, according to WhoScored.

Raheem Sterling, on the other hand, is a much more prolific talisman. His finishing and composure used to be in question, however, Pep Guardiola has knocked him into gear in this regard. Talismen always win, so if Hudson-Odoi is to obtain more minutes for England, he needs to take a leaf from Sterling’s book.

England comes up against Montenegro this Monday. Since the competition isn’t as high and Southgate likes to rotate his squad, I would not be surprised to see Hudson-Odoi get the start, or at least play a big part in this one.

What did you make of Callum Hudson-Odoi’s 20-minute cameo against the Czech Republic?