Chelsea: Tammy Abraham follows simple rule of shoot more to score more

Whether in the Champions League or Premier League, Tammy Abraham’s shooting habits place him in the right company. It’s so dumb and obvious that it needs to be said: A player won’t score a lot of goals without taking a lot of shots.

WhoScored tweeted a stat ranking on Monday that said either more or less than they probably intended. With a single goal from 14 shots, Tammy Abraham has the third worst shooting percentage in the Champions League among players with 10 or more shots. The only players with lower conversions were Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo, who each have just as many goals as the Chelsea No. 9: one.

So, to recap, on the basis of a small sample size (four Champions League group stage games) and a weak hit rate (one goal for each of the three individuals), WhoScored gets a stat that allows them to put the world’s two best players alongside the word “worst” and Chelsea fans get a stat that puts their young striker alongside the world’s two best players. As long as you’re not too into finding meaning in stats, win-win, right? But where’s the fun in just stopping there?

Tammy Abraham has 38 shots in 12 Premier League games this season, third-most in the league. Yet he has more goals than the two more prolific shooters ahead of him: Mohamed Salah and Sergio Aguero.

Abraham’s 10 league goals place him second to Jamie Vardy, who has the 25th-most shots with 25 – the same amount as Danny Ings and Willian.

Jamie Vardy is exceptionally clinical within a tactical system designed to minimize his touches and his time on the ball, and, therefore, his shots. Leicester’s offence is built, in part, on getting him the ball at the precise moment and position for him to take a high-percentage shot, because for him at this stage of his career, his clinical finishing demands a very low level of involvement in the overall run of play. Young strikers should want to emulate his finishing rate, but not his overall place in Leicester’s set-up.

Abraham is better off taking and missing more shots than chasing after a purposefully aberrant conversion rate like Vardy’s.

Abraham is on pace to finish the season with over 100 shots, which would make him only the fourth Chelsea player of the last decade to do so.

Diego Costa took 111 shots and scored 20 goals in 2016/17, sixth- and fourth-most in the Premier League, respectively. Before Costa, Didier Drogba took 150 shots in 2010/11, scoring 11 of them: at 7.3%, nearly the exact percentage as Abraham’s Champions League third-worst. In the preceding season, Drogba took 172 shots but scored 29 goals for the Premier League Golden Boot. Joining Drogba among the Premier League’s ten most frequent shooters was Frank Lampard, who was fourth with 141 shots and fifth with 22 goals.

Let’s just pause to appreciate that for a second. Frank Lampard, a midfielder, scored 22 goals and was still seven short of his teammate. A box-to-box midfielder and a striker combined for over 300 shots and 49 goals.

Of course, if we’re talking about Frank Lampard and Didier Drogba in an article mostly about Tammy Abraham, we have to pull in Mason Mount. Mount is not too far behind Abraham,12th in the league with 33 shots.

If Abraham maintains his shooting and scoring pace he will extend Chelsea’s streak to four years of having a player in the Premier League’s top 10 for shots and goals. And if Mount can edge his way into the top 10 it will be the first time Chelsea have two players there since Drogba and Lampard in 2009/10.

While some statistical comparisons may feel a bit forced, among these two pairs, no one will tire of the comparisons while the younger duo write their own bit of club history.