Omari Hutchinson had a fantastic season on loan with Ipswich Town, playing a major role in their promotion to the Premier League with 10 goals and six assists. Kieran McKenna, the potential incoming Chelsea head coach, did not instantly trust the kid in important moments, but after the 20-year-old put in multiple game-winning performances off the bench, he would start eleven of twelve games to conclude the season, including the last nine in a row. Hutchinson’s goodbye note to the club appeared to dampen initial expectations that he would return to Ipswich for next season, alerting other teams to his probable availability.
Chief among those are Vfb Stuttgart, who apparently have “set their sights” on the young winger and are looking to bring him in on loan for next season. Sky Deutschland claim that Borussia Mönchengladbach are are also interested, while the Mirror add Eredivisie duo Ajax (5th place?!) and Feyenoord (runners-up) to the list of potential suitors. But I’d guess Hutchinson would have more than a few teams willing to take him in England’s top two divisions as well.
Whether that list would include Chelsea, too, is not at all clear. Hutchinson, one of roughly a million wingers on the books right now, has just one year left on his contract, which means that unless he signs an extension, any and all loans are off the table. And considering our murky financial health when it comes to PSR/FFP (especially the latter due to UEFA’s more stringent rules), the braintrust just might see him, too, as a bit of delicious pure profit on the bottom line. He isn’t exactly from the Academy, (re-)joining as an 18-year-old from Arsenal after leaving at an early age, but that “undisclosed fee” would make just a minor difference in the calculations.
So yeah … either on loan or for good, we will probably have to make do with watching Hutchinson from afar for at least another season.
