Quizzed on whether Hudson-Odoi needs to work on mental strength as much as tactical nous, Reds icon Collymore - speaking exclusively toGOAL viaBest Betting Bonuses - said: “I think so. I think that it's funny because when I started my career, two moves before I came to Forest, I was at Crystal Palace and the manager, Steve Coppell, who was a great winger himself for Man United and England, wanted me to be a wide man. And I always remember him saying to me - sometimes I’d go out on the right, but mostly on the left - ‘look, if you're having a poor spell of form as a wide man, all you've got to do is remember the basics, go past the man, put it in the box, six times out of 10, that's it’.
“And you can imagine somebody like Brian Clough saying to John Robertson - I know he's kind of Europe's best player arguably for three, four years, but Robbo didn't need telling at the end of his career. He obviously went on and played for Derby and when he went up north and played for Scotland. He knew, go past the full-back, put the cross in the box.
“I think what happens sometimes with wide men is they try to become too clever - they initially go past somebody, then they chop it back and they chop it back again, and before they know it, they're looking and they see a crowded box and they pass it back. Then it becomes too easy and it becomes a habit.
“I think that for Hudson-Odoi, it doesn't matter whether the teams come to the City Ground and attack them or not - whether they drop off, Burnley will probably drop off - he just needs the manager to put his arm around him and say, ‘get some chalk on your boots, on the touchline’. Get really wide because I think a lot of wide men cut down their own space. They come in off the touchline too much, which means you're five or six or 10 yards closer to the full-back.
“Stand on the touchline, which gives you the maximum distance between you and the full-back to be able to receive the ball and then to get some momentum. Go past him, put the cross in for [Chris] Wood - that's all you've got to do. Beat the man, put it in for Woody. Or don't beat the man and put it in for Woody. I think that way, it really simplifies the process.
“And all coaches and managers that I've worked with that have had wide men, and good wide men in particular, they've said to them, sometimes in plain English, ‘go past the full-back and put it into the box’. I think that once you do it once and you get some joy and you see a good cross put in, then you think, okay, the full-back then starts to drop off a little bit, gives you a little bit more space and it becomes cause and effect.
“So for Cal, it probably is mental. He now does the slowing things down or checking back and passing it inland much more than he should, as opposed to the sort of glory days of [Anthony] Elanga on the right, him down the left, bombing past people, putting it into Woody, who scores. He just needs to get back to doing those basics.”