Tammy Abraham’s future is one of the stories of the current transfer window which has gotten lost in the deluge of all the big-money marquee signings and Messi to PSG and yada yada yada. With the recent signing of Romelu Lukaku by Chelsea, and the previous season signings of Timo Werner and Kai Havertz (who is occasionally used as a striker), Tammy is finding minutes hard to come by in West London. This has prompted him to look for minutes elsewhere and it is Jose Mourinho’s AS Roma that have secured his signature for a sum of 40 million Euros.

The Story So Far

Some basic information about Abraham :-

• English/Nigerian citizenship
• 23 years old
• 1.90 m tall
• Right-footed

Tammy’s 6ft 3in frame might look lanky, but he has enough strength to contend with the most physical of defenders.

Moving on, here is a look at how Tammy has seen his minutes of football since breaking out in the 2015/16 season.

After a couple of games off the bench for Chelsea in his breakout season, he was loaned out to Bristol City FC in the EFL Championship where he played a significant amount of minutes with the club, scoring 25 goals. This helped the club beat the drop and come 17th. Abraham then had spells with Swansea in the Premier League and then Aston Villa in the Championship, the latter where he played a key role in helping Dean Smith’s side gain promotion to the Premier league through the playoff’s, scoring 25 goals along the way. His loan merry-go-round ended when he was finally given a chance at Chelsea by Frank Lampard, a chance which he took with both hands, firing in 15 goals and 3 assists in his first full Premier League season, helping Chelsea’s young side secure a Champion’s League spot.

Let’s dig into Tammy’s career so far with the help of data and video.

Data Analysis

What do Tammy’s underlying’s with respect to his finishing say about his time in Professional football so far?

This graph only contains data from his seasons in the Premier League, so discrepancies are expected, but in general, Tammy has had a pretty OK-ish performance relative to his xG.

As his minutes under Tuchel dried up, so did his ability to consistently deliver and take the chances afforded to him, trapping him in a vicious cycle from which he is now attempting to break free by securing a move away.

The next chart also shows us how Abraham has always been an above average striker with respect to the quality and quantity of his shots, even being amongst the best forwards in the top 5 leagues in accumulating non-penalty xG.

Finally, a look at his scouting report over the last 365 days gives us a quick summary of Tammy’s strength’s and weaknesses.

While his attacking play in general is quite good, there is stuff in the domain of on ball effectiveness and contributions to the team defending as a unit that is left to be desired.

Tammy Abraham will score you goals. If you want a young striker that is effective at putting balls in the back of the net, you needn’t look much further than him.

Next up, we dig into the how and why of him being good at scoring goals, as well as the things that he has to improve on to become a world class forward.

Video Analysis

Tammy’s movement in the box is one of his best attributes. He has the great ability to create space for himself in the box, and a variety of different weapons in his arsenal to finish off the chances that he gets. Here is an example of Tammy’s clever movement which ultimately results in him scoring a goal.

Tammy also has an excellent “striker’s instinct”, i.e. the ability to smartly read opposition players and the ball to make optimum usage of each situation. He is great at reading loose balls in and around the box, which allows him to pounce on many exciting opportunities, which often ultimately result in goals.

Here is a clip demonstrating Abraham’s great poaching ability.

He also has a great ability to isolate a man and use his physicality to overcome him, such as the examples shown in this clip.

And of course he has the awareness to find space to leave himself unmarked in the box for easy tap-ins.

His contribution to a team’s overall play isn’t much compared to other top striker’s in the world. Here is an example of him dropping deep and initiating a dribble to win his team a corner.

However, there is a distinction to be made between Tammy’s effectiveness on the ball in settled possession and in transition. While his on-ball endeavors in settled possession could use work, he is better in contributing to the team in transition situations.

Another thing that he doesn’t do more of is beating his man one-on-one. Here’s one example.

Chelsea F.C.

Looking deeper into Tammy’s time at Chelsea, we can gain more crucial information about him as a player, and a more representative look at what can be expected of him at his new club.

Firstly, a look at his heatmaps for the Premier League seasons suggest that his role has not changed, rather only the amount of minutes played. He does occasionally drop deep to link up play (as is expected of any striker at a top club these days), however, he mostly concentrates his touches of the ball in the penalty area, the place from where he can cause the most damage, something that is corroborated by his shot map over the past two season’s as well.

Another interesting aspect that has been talked about with respect to Tammy’s prospective move (for Arsenal fans) to Arsenal has been the development of a connection with their LB Kieran Tierney. Looking at the locations of the shots that Tammy has taken, assisted by full-backs, we see

It is also extremely important to note that of the players that have assisted the shots in his top-flight career so far, Reece James and Cesar Azpilicueta rank 3rd and 4th respectively with 10 and 9 shot-assists each. Not only combining with his teammates in terms of value from scoring situations, Abraham is also effective at using his great movement for the benefit of his teammates, as is demonstrated in this following clip.

Final Overview

Here is a final assessment of Tammy, summarizing all that we have talked about so far, and more.

Strength’s

Tammy is a tall striker who is quite strong on and off the ball in duels despite his wiry frame.

His movement in the box is superb, not only creating space for himself, but also for his teammates, displaying superb spatial awareness of opponents and the ball.

He is extremely receptive towards loose balls in and around the box, allowing him to be always ready to pounce on then and claim “true striker’s goals”.

Abraham is generally quite an aggressive pressor, though that could be more due to instruction by manager than a tendency of the player. Regardless, he’s not going to press much under Jose at Roma so it doesn’t really matter that much does it?

Weaknesses

Tammy still has to improve on his ability on the ball, and his ability to influence the game without scoring goals. His link-up play in settled possession is below-par of what is expected of a striker at a top European club.

His heading could use some work, and his finishing in general is quite OK (as said before) but has underperformed in 2 of the 3 seasons for which FBref collects xG data.

He seems to think a bit when going one-one, so he could work on making his finishing a bit more instinctive.

A.S. Roma

Let’s assess the suitability of Tammy to his new club, Roma.

While I would definitely prefer for him to move to either of Atalanta(Luis Muriel go brrrr) or Arsenal(The prospect of a Tierney-Tammy link-up appeals to me very much, though, I suppose a similar partnership could be struck with Spinazzolla, assuming Jose hasn’t sucked out either of their souls by then), there are definite positives towards his move to Rome. Of course, Roma are getting the better end of the deal here. They manage to replace Edin Dzeko with a young, dynamic striker who is sure to score them goals. For Tammy, on the other hand, he goes to a place where he get’s to play football. Minutes is better than no minutes, right?

Tammy get’s to show his worth, hopefully securing him a big money move to another top European club, or Chelsea can just buy him back for an obscene amount of money (yeah, Chelsea, we’re onto you).

Conclusion

Wherever Tammy goes, I’m sure that he has the necessary tools to succeed. A very successful career awaits for him, so Jose Mourinho, please, oh please for the love of god, do not go full Jose on him.

Also, a young striker who has great awareness of his surroundings, must be nice…… (Man Utd fan cries).

You can contact me at my twitter account.

Hope you enjoyed reading this.

Harsh.