Tammy Abraham is the first Aston Villa player with 25 goals in a season in four decades. He deserves his chance at Chelsea after years of missteps.
Tammy Abraham has once again lit the Championship alight which speaks to two things. The first is that his season at Bristol City was no fluke. The second is that when given proper service relative to his opposition, he will score in bunches.
Bunches may be a bit of an understatement for many Aston Villa fans. After opting to stay in January, Abraham has gone onto hit the 25 goal mark. No other Aston Villa player has done the same since 1977.
By choice or otherwise, Chelsea needs to make room for Abraham next season. It is “just the Championship” but that would be dismissive for the sake of being dismissive. Chelsea has made misstep after misstep when it has come to strikers for years. It is time to make one move that makes sense.
Inevitably, Swansea will be mentioned as to why Abraham is not ready in conjunction with the “it is only the Championship”. But Abraham arrived at Swansea just as they had sold their only creative player Gylfi Sigurdsson. That was not the case when his loan started of course, but that held him back in his inaugural Premier League season.
But it also worth mentioning that the Championship is no simple league either. To have scored as many goals as he has across two clubs and with a season splitting the two, plus several managers along the way, is noteworthy. Given the service, Abraham can find the back of the net.
It is also not worth dismissing his achievements for being from a lower league. Imagine if Harry Kane, Dele Alli, or even Jamie Vardy’s records in lower leagues were entirely dismissed. Their clubs would have missed out on some of their best players.
Furthermore, how many times has Chelsea ignored the strikers they already have in the name of short term solutions (which either flopped or did a job briefly before moving on)? Romelu Lukaku was doing what Abraham was doing but in the Premier League, but rather than trust him Chelsea brought in Demba Ba, Samuel Eto’O, and even Didier Drogba for a second stint.
There was a brief call for Abraham to return this January and help Chelsea’s striker issues. Instead, he stayed at Aston Villa and Gonzalo Higuain came in to allow Chelsea to give opponents handicaps before the match even began. Next season, Higuain should be gone and Olivier Giroud will likely remain. Even if Chelsea buys a striker, Abraham should be one of three and he should be given a fair shot at playing.
Chelsea cannot fall into their own history of short term solutions to long term problems again. The should not allow themselves to make Abraham another Lukaku who departs for the playing time the Blues will never give him. Abraham has proven he knows how to score. Chelsea now needs to prove they can trust their own rather than bringing in another player to clog the pipeline.