Willian believes that Callum Hudson-Odoi can become “one of the best players in the world”, and that his Chelsea teammates have been imploring the 18-year-old to stay at the club.
The winger handed in a transfer request on Saturday, but still offered a fine performance the following day, scoring Chelsea’s second goal in a 3-0 FA Cup fourth-round win over Sheffield Wednesday.
Hudson-Odoi saluted the fans afterwards in what was thought to be a farewell, but Willian, who has been impressed with the player’s attitude amid much speculation, hopes he can stay.
“Of course we want him to stay,” the Brazilian said. “We don’t want him to leave. He can become one of the best players for Chelsea, one of the best players in the world, in the future. He has to stay.
“We want him to stay. He’s a great talent. A great player. We tell him all the time to stay here.
“I’m happy for him. He’s a great player, a great talent. He’s only 18. I’m happy for him, I think he has to continue in the same way.
“The quality he has, he has everything. He’s fast. Of course he can improve, he’s only 18, but he can improve a lot to become one of the best players.”
Willian has been impressed with how Hudson-Odoi has knuckled down despite so much uncertainty about his position.
“Yeah, he has to do this. He has to forget outside the pitch and when he goes inside he has to do his best performance and [Sunday] was one of them.
“You can see from his goal today he has quality. When you see players who score goals like this you have to say he has quality. We know how important he is for this club and for us and we just want him to stay.”
Willian was meanwhile impressed with Gonzalo Higuain’s debut, and said he thinks the reason the new signing passed up the chance to open his Chelsea account with a penalty was because he wants a “beautiful goal” first.
“I want to give him the ball for him to take the penalty, for him to score the first goal for Chelsea, but he said, ’No, you can take it, no problem.’ That was the conversation.
“Maybe he wants to score a beautiful goal. But it was a good conversation.
“You can see he’s a very good player, intelligent. Do some movements. Come forward, too, go behind the defenders. I think he can of course improve a lot, this was just the first game. I think he will help us a lot this season.
“He has quality, he has everything to score goals for Chelsea.”
