There's Something about Omari

“Never fall in love with a loan player” is one of the great football fan aphorisms. The economics of the game are such that any future superstar who shines bright during a temporary stint will never be yours for forever and you can only get hurt. I know all this, but maybe I’m just an emotionally reckless man, unable or unwilling to protect myself. Maybe life is short and you embrace joy whilst you’ve got it. Perhaps, I just want to be present for a little bit of fleeting magic. Whatever it is, as long as the dance with Omari Hutchinson continues, I’m just going to let myself enjoy it.

Partially, this is just because seeing a kid this good flourish on loan is a rarer experience than we often imagine. Ipswich have had our fair share of significant “pinch-hitter” loans, full-grown players like Jim Magilton, Jimmy Bullard and now Kieffer Moore. We have also had the occasional player come through who was ultimately destined for the top of the game, like future England internationals Andros Townsend and Ainsley Maitland-Niles, as well as future FIFA Club World Cup winner Trevoh Chalobah. I think it would be a stretch to say any of those three exactly thrilled us at Portman Road, constrained as they were by system and circumstance. Others, like Bersant Celina, Tom Lawrence, Ryan Fraser and before them the legendary Gio Dos Santos, certainly dazzled, despite being overburdened as often the sole creative spark in rather pragmatic teams. Yet, it didn’t feel like we were “developing” those players so much as just using them prop us up for a little bit.

Borrowing young players became a regular habit for clubs like Ipswich only really in the late 1990s. A list of our business since then is a testament to just how hard it is to guess which 20-year-old in a Premier League academy is actually going to be transformational to your first team. In amongst the good ones, there were many many more like Alex Henshall and Zeki Fryers who were starting a descent down the leagues, rather than finding a springboard to greater things. Some of these players we barely saw, some of them were useful competitors – Callum Connolly, Luke Garbutt, Matthew Pennington (that’s just the Everton ones) – but not much more. The proud sensation that the teenager temporarily in your club’s care is bound for the stratosphere and your club is an integral part of that journey might even be entirely new to me. It’s possible Omari is the best development loan we’ve ever done.

You worried when he arrived that he could be one of those teenagers with all the tricks and none of the game awareness or decision-making. He had the sort of grouchy, half-irritated self-confidence that made you wonder if he was humble enough to work and learn. But then there was Southampton Away. The goal that came from his doggedness and determination, his relentless athleticism, more than his technical ability. That performance and what we learned of his relationship with McKenna and his coaching dispelled the main lines of concern.

For so long thereafter he seemed to be mainly an excellent impact substitute. His pace and trickery was a lovely weapon to hurt tired teams, even if we were generally still reliant on Chaplin and Burns’s astute positional and tactical work to set us up at the start of games. Sometimes the starts he got were less impressive or asked too much of him. QPR at home and down to the bare bones, we looked to Hutchinson to be the main man, but it wasn’t his evening.

That time is coming though. I think it’s obvious now that Omari Hutchinson’s development will eventually take him past every other player in our squad. Yesterday’s win was plentiful evidence of that. All three goals had key contributions from Hutchinson. For the first, his movement pushed Birmingham back. He collected the ball on the right, he dipped inside, sucked the industrious Paik Seong-Ho into helping out Birmingham left back Ethan Laird, before laying the ball precisely into a shooting position for the now freed up Sam Morsy. The pass to release Tuanzebe for the second showed excellent decision-making and awareness, even as he accumulated the attention of most of Birmingham’s left side, driving into the penalty area. The deserved goal came late on, via a well-timed run, a quality first touch on a bouncing ball that was harder to execute than it looked and another unerring one-on-one finish.

It wasn't just the involvement in the goals though. As things got sticky after the Birmingham equaliser, increasingly he was the protagonist we looked for. He hugged the right touchline and became a magnet for long diagonals by Davis, Burgess and Luongo. When Kieffer Moore got the ball within his ample shield, he invariably spun and looked right. Everything went right and into Omari’s velvet first touch (if you squinted it could have been Bukayo Saka out there). Almost every time this happened, instantly their full back was furiously backpedaling into their penalty area. So much of Laird and substitute Juninho Bacuna’s bandwidth was occupied with Hutchinson, no wonder they didn’t notice Axel Tuanzebe tip toe past them for the second.

The journey we're on with Hutchinson is thrilling. Not just because he’s a fabulous player to watch but the sense that Ipswich and the environment the club currently fosters is so crucial. Talented kids have come through here from elite academies and learned things, but it was more the kind of education that you get from the school of hard knocks than an elite finishing school. Alongside the coaching and the manager, having such a brilliant team, with intelligent, industrious forwards like Conor Chaplin, Nathan Broadhead and Wes Burns has given Omari a platform to shine rather than a burden to carry. Being, in a sense, supernumerary to the regular starting eleven is so vital to teenagers being able to gradually thrive on loan like he has. There will be pride when he makes it to the top.

The day when he blows straight past every other player at the club is coming. It might be here already. Broadhead, Chaplin and Burns are my boys and if my partner would let me, I’d happily name my soon-to-be born first son (due play-off final day!) Nathan Conor Wesley Saunders, but as Omari’s development accelerates we might be approaching the event horizon where we want him on the pitch for every single possible minute. More Omari increasingly becomes more important than Omari impact. As we get towards the business end of the season against teams more accustomed to our main patterns of play, this might even be our trump card, the evolution that takes us over the top. You might just about have a handle on 2023 Ipswich, but 2024 Ipswich is coming and there’s something about Omari.

Omari Hutchinson v Birmingham City

Minutes 70

Goals 1

Shots 3

Accurate passes 17/22 (77%)

Chances created 4

Expected goals 0.46

Expected goals on target 0.65

Expected assists 0.75

Shot accuracy 2/2 (100%)

Blocked shots 1

Touches 42

Touches in opposition box 11

Passes into final third 2

Accurate long balls 1/2 (50%)

Accurate crosses 2/4 (50%)

Tackles won 1/2 (50%)

Interceptions 1

Defensive actions 5

Recoveries 3

Dribbled past 1

Ground duels won 3/8 (38%)

Aerial duels won 0/1 (0%)

Was fouled 1

Fouls committed 2