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Omari Hutchinson joined Milan from Nottingham Forest in the summer transfer window, and it’s not clear at this stage what his future at the City Ground looks like.
Milan have agreed a deal to buy Hutchinson for £40 million if he impresses during his loan spell away from the City Ground. However, that is a very large sum for a team in Italy to spend, and there are no guarantees he will make a permanent move.
Hutchinson seemed to struggle under four different managers last season, with his best form coming briefly under Sean Dyche and then under Vitor Pereira at the end of the campaign.
Still, there is a secret to unleashing the vast potential in Hutchinson, and Paul Anderson believes he can still become a top player at Forest on one condition.
TalkingPoints
Should we have kept Omari Hutchinson? How good would he be to have on the bench this season?
Hutchinson has been a hot topic of discussion with Forest starting their Premier League season poorly and the young winger doing largely well under Ruben Amorim at the San Siro.
Anderson believes he can still have a future at Forest if the right manager gives him some confidence, and the former winger has also shared how he would manage him if he was in charge of him.
He said on the Forest Focus podcast: “You can definitely see the potential that he has. He was really well thought of at Chelsea; he had a good season at Ipswich, to say they got relegated, and I saw moments there where I thought, ‘There’s a really good player there,’ and from a coach’s perspective, I’d have loved to have worked with him.
“I think I could have really given him that confidence that he needs for him to go and play, he just seems like a nice lad. He probably needed that arm around him, and he probably didn’t have that last season. He’s someone who could win you a game on his own out of nothing.
“Hopefully it works for him there, and he improves and matures, and then when he comes back to Forest, if he gets that opportunity, he can perform. The issue is where he fits in. At Milan he’s playing as one of the 10s, he can do that. He’s fit and athletic but he obviously hasn’t had the time yet to do that at Forest.”
Whether Hutchinson has another part to play at Forest is completely down to Oliver Glasner. He will have the deciding say on any players that feature at the City Ground, and right now, he felt the winger’s future was best served on loan.
Hutchinson is only young and has bags of time ahead of him. Some sound form at Milan could see Forest hand him another chance, and given the lack of goals this season, the Reds desperately need some creativity from somewhere in the January transfer window.