Chelsea: Tammy Abraham leads at Aston Villa, must avoid Championship trap

Tammy Abraham is back on the form from his breakout season on loan at Bristol City. John Terry will have to help him avoid the Chelsea loan army’s “Championship trap.”

Tammy Abraham scored his team-leading fifth goal of the season last weekend. With one assist to his credit, he is Aston Villa’s second-most prolific goal creator (goals plus assists) behind Conor Hourihane. This matches his league output from the entirety of last season at Swansea City, and has him three goals behind his output through 11 matches from his first loan at Bristol City.

Saturday’s win at Derby County was more than just a Chelsea reunion for John Terry, Frank Lampard, Tammy Abraham, Fikayo Tomori and Mason Mount. It moved Villa within four points of Derby for the promotion playoffs in the Championship. Both teams were in the playoff last year but – obviously – failed to promote. With Chelsea legends at or near their helm, the Premier League is the goal for both.

Chelsea have an unfortunate habit of punishing, or at least not rewarding, their loanees who earn promotion. Rarely does a loanee on a promoted club get to stay with that club for their first year in the top flight, or go on loan elsewhere in the Premier League. Tomas Kalas has experienced this several times, as have Lucas Piazon and Patrick Bamford. A few players had a brief spell in the Premier League following a promotion – Isaiah Brown and Kasey Palmer, for example. But it was brief. Both are still on loan, and both are back in the Championship. Brown will probably earn promotion against with Leeds United. Will it help his case this time? History suggests not.

This history is what Tammy Abraham is fighting against. His success at Bristol City and his incipient success at Aston Villa come on either side of a lacklustre showing at Swansea City. In the facile reading of Chelsea’s development staff (oh, by the way, the club have now gone over a year with a technical director), this could mean he is a Championship-quality player and no more. Like those other loanees before him, their “thinking” goes, success in the Championship means he belongs in the Championship, even if his success there moved the club out of the second-tier and even if that club wants him for their survival fight.

Bristol City’s tactics and style of play were perfect for a player like Tammy Abraham. Swansea City’s tactics would have taken the mick out of any direct, pacey No. 9. Antoine Griezmann would have struggled for double-digit goals in the Swans’ somnolent system under however many managers they gnawed on last year.

Abraham has an advantage his predecessors in the loan army did not have: John Terry. Terry and Frank Lampard are advocates for Chelsea’s youth. More fundamentally, they are advocates for doing football right and for taking care of footballers. Their work with their loanees shows how much they understand the responsibility they have to these youngsters and their parent club. It certainly helps that the loanees’ parent club is their coaches’ spiritual home. But to be fair, Frank Lampard is doing wonders with Liverpool loanee Harry Wilson, as well.

Terry’s influence at Chelsea will bear on Abraham’s future. If Aston Villa promote and they want Abraham to stay, Chelsea are more likely to assent if John Terry is making the request. If Terry tells the club Abraham is ready for the Premier League – either at Chelsea or somewhere else while the Blues sort out their striker situation – his words will carry farther than someone else’s.

The same goes for Lampard and his loanees at Derby. But Tammy Abraham is a particular concern for the Championship trap because he has a middling Premier League season sandwiched between two strong Championship season. That is a recipe for Chelsea to take all the wrong lessons from his experiences at Bristol City, Swansea City and Aston Villa.

Before he returns to Chelsea, John Terry’s greatest service to the club at this stage of his career could be ensuring they do right by Tammy Abraham. He could be ready for the first team next year. But if not, Terry can help ensure he lands in the right spot.