Tam’s The Man To Cross Bridge To Chelsea Promised Land

Tammy Abraham will need to confound recent trends and statistics if he is ever to become a Chelsea regular, but his Swansea teammate Leon Britton believes the striker can re-write history.

All the evidence shows that home-grown talent loaned out from Stamford Bridge generally find they knock but are not gained entry when they bid to make the Premier League champions’ first team.

There are 34 players currently hired out by Antonio Conte, but the chances of any of them solving the problems the Chelsea manager is presently wrestling with are statistically slim.

But such has been Abraham’s impact at Swansea – where his two goals brought them a desperately needed first home victory of the season against Huddersfield on Saturday – that club captain Britton envisages a player who may blaze his own trail when he returns to London at the season’s end.

“It is difficult at Chelsea,” said Britton, 35, a full 15 years Abraham’s senior. “We have seen a lot of players who have left and have had big careers. But I don’t see why Tammy can’t make it there.

“The top teams always create a lot of chances and Tammy is a very good finisher. If you give him those chances, he will score the goals.

“He has come here to prove to Chelsea that he can do it in the Premier League with a team who are not at the standard of Chelsea. If he does that, I don’t see any reason why he can’t go back to Chelsea, break through, and have a long career there.

“He reminds me of someone I played with years ago at West Ham, Jermaine Defoe, in terms of the hunger to score goals. Sometimes players don’t want to do that, they will look to pass the ball. But he just wants to get on the end of everything. He is very single-minded.

Leon Britton. Pic: Swansea City.

“Jermaine has scored 160-odd goals in the Premier League (159) and Tammy can go on and have a great career in the Premier League. Hopefully, for him, he will continue to do it here and then go back to Chelsea and score many goals there.”

Most of Abraham’s 26 goals on loan at Bristol City in the Championship last season were from close range and he has continued to mine the same rich seam in South Wales. He now has four goals in eight league appearances.

His first was a precise side-foot from around 10 yards after Tom Carroll seized on an awful mistake by Huddersfield goalkeeper Jonas Lossl. The second would be best measured in inches, although had he not been on the end of Jordan Ayew’s chip over the onrushing Lossl, the ball may well have been cleared off the line.

Both Britton and Swansea manager Paul Clement – who knew of Abraham from his own time coaching at Chelsea – believe the player with Nigerian heritage thrives through a blend of hard work and rare instinct.

“He’s a willing runner and he works very hard for the team,” added Britton. “He is always in between the goalposts and always arriving at the right time. Both of his goals were a prime example of that.”

Clement views Abraham as a future senior England international and has been impressed by his rapid adjustment to Premier League life.

He said: “He is very quick but I felt in some games before he was a little bit static. We wanted him to attack the back of defences more and we saw that in this game.

“He is a confident lad, with a lot of belief in his ability. I got a sense of that the first time I met him when I was trying to bring him to the club. That is a good thing. If you have got talent, you have physical attributes and you have confidence as well, you have half a chance.”

Huddersfield midfielder Tom Ince felt his shot shy team should have had a penalty at 0-0 when Martin Olsson brought him down.

“It is a red card to begin with and a game-changing decision,” said Ince. “The referee said it was a side-to-side tackle, but, for me, he didn’t win the ball and he took me out completely.

“I dont understand why I would go down when I’m on my left foot, going into the box and one-on-one with the goalkeeper. For me, that is a very poor decision. But we can’t affect it now and have to move on.”

 

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