Chelsea: Tammy Abraham’s struggles for starts have only just begun

Chelsea’s Tammy Abraham will face a make or break season as he looks to reestablish himself in a squad that reinforced above him.

One has to feel for Tammy Abraham. It’s not often that a 22-year-old striker who just scored 18 goals heads into the new season as the third choice on the depth chart. But, alas, here he is, looking upwards at newcomer Timo Werner and old stalwart Olivier Giroud.

If you were Frank Lampard though, you’d be excused for being a bit concerned about potentially relying on Abraham again as your full time starter. Those 18 goals were great, but 13 of them came before the new year. Of the five he scored in 2020, one came in the 5-3 loss against Liverpool, and another in the 4-1 loss against Bayern Munich. His scoring diminished in both volume and importance as the season hit its most crucial point.

His struggles following the COVID hiatus were fortunately (from Chelsea’s perspective) overshadowed by Giroud’s renaissance. The wily veteran scored seven times after the break, with all but one of those goals coming in Chelsea victories. Just as important, Giroud seemed to have an extrasensory connection with Christian Pulisic, Project Restart’s breakout star.

While Giroud’s excellent form pushed Abraham to the bench, Abraham’s own play didn’t do him any favors either. Very few came out of lock down in better shape than when they entered it, and that certainly looked to be the case for Abraham. It’s worth remembering that he missed Chelsea’s last two matches before the break with an ankle issue, meaning he went into lock down with an injury without access to the usual amenities to aid in recovery. He surely had more room to spread out in than the typical one-bedroom apartment than the average 22-year-old lives in, but it’s still a less than ideal rehab environment.

Regardless, one could tell from the first match back against Aston Villa that he was well off the pace. His two starts, against West Ham and Sheffield United, were two of Chelsea’s worst performances of the Project Restart period. The season ultimately ended successfully for the club as a whole, but it was a thoroughly dismal finish for Abraham himself.

Now, a little over a month later, Abraham looks set for an uphill battle to earn anything near the minutes he received last season. Giroud is still around and looked decent for France in the Nations League, while Timo Werner already opened his Chelsea account, albeit unofficially, against Brighton in a friendly, and scored for Germany against Spain as well. In the same span, Abraham has sat through a COVID quarantine and was the only player in the England squad to not even make the bench in their match against Iceland. An uphill battle indeed.

Then there’s the Kai Havertz of it all. The signing of Havertz is Chelsea’s biggest transfer coup since Eden Hazard in 2012. His skill made him a can’t-miss prospect, but his versatility sets him apart as a uniquely valuable piece in Lampard’s tactical setup. Havertz can play up front, in the midfield, or out of the right wing, and will probably find himself taking up each of those roles at some point this season.

In one sense, it’s good for Abraham that Havertz isn’t necessarily out-and-out competition for the number nine role. The same could be said for Werner, who has proven to be more than capable when deployed on the left wing. As far as pure strikers go, it’s pretty much just Abraham and Giroud. Oh, and Michy Batshuyai.

But, if anything, the addition of versatile players like Werner and Havertz (and Hakim Ziyech for that matter) suggests a general philosophy Lampard is building the squad around. One that doesn’t bode well for Abraham. Essentially, Lampard’s ultimate goal seems to be an amorphous, interchangeable and impossibly unpredictable front five. We’ve written about the potential for duel attacking eights in Chelsea’s midfield, and with players like Mason Mount and now Havertz in the mix, that’s almost a given now. Reigning Player of the Season Mateo Kovacic may have something to say about that starting lineup, but it’s the perfect solution against those sides who pack their defense and try to park the bus, something Chelsea struggled with last season. If this influx of attacking talent doesn’t solve that issue, then it is unclear as to what will.

Having five players on the field who all could, or even should, put up double-digit goal contributions is a luxury only Chelsea and the two Manchester sides can reasonably claim. If that ends up being the case, it will be a product of the constant interchanging, overlapping and rotating this attacking brigade is capable of.

Unfortunately, Abraham isn’t one of those players who can affect the game from midfield or either wing. If he’s stationed up top, we know he can offer plenty of goals and a handful of assists; anywhere else on the field he’s a fish out of water. It’s hardly his fault. He’s tall and extremely lanky, and has spent the past four seasons playing exclusively as a striker. It is, however, his problem to solve.

There are two ways Abraham can reassert himself as one of Lampard’s top choices. The first is obvious: score. Preferably early and often. There’s no question that Abraham will get minutes throughout the season, whether it’s as a substitute or when Lampard feels the need to rotate the squad. Given the tight fixture schedule, it will take every warm body available to keep the squad fresh and in form throughout the season. With so many matches, it’s not out of the question that Abraham could rack up 10 goals by Christmas and suddenly find himself penned into Chelsea’s best XI. He had tallied 13 at the same point last season, but given the new signings and altered schedule, 10 would be a great number to reach.

The other path Abraham could take would be to follow in the footsteps of his teammate, Giroud. More specifically, the version of Giroud who helped guide France to a World Cup victory two years ago. Simply put, he was a striker who had no real intention of, well, striking. With far more dynamic players like Kylian Mbappe and Antoine Griezmann around him, Giroud was primarily a facilitator and decoy. His excellent movement, distribution and holdup play allowed those superstars to play with the kind of downhill momentum that leaves defenses backtracking and scrambling in fear and panic.

In the same way that Giroud creates space for a mach-speed Mbappe run, Abraham could do the same for Christian Pulisic or any of the other pacey attackers at Lampard’s disposal. That type of back-to-goal forward play offers a point of reference when the ball is being played out from the back, especially in transition. Abraham lacks the physical strength and arsenal of flicked passes that make Giroud such an exceptional holdup player, but he moves intelligently and can pick out a decent pass in the final third. If he can pick up some of Giroud’s skills and workout regimens, he could become the kind of totemic figure around which Chelsea’s more mercurial players could flourish. It may not be the glorious heroics people love to see from their striker, but it’s proven effective enough to win a World Cup. If Abraham’s ultimate fate is to be an improved version of Giroud, that’s not a bad outcome at all.

All of this is to say one thing: this is a make or break season for Tammy Abraham. A disappointing year could see him quietly exiting out the back door next summer for a mid-table side. A surprising rise back to prominence could see him feature as one of England’s most important pieces in next summer’s Euros, and would vault him right up to the upper echelons of the game’s brightest young stars.

In the short term, Abraham is partially a victim of circumstance, as world class talent floods into the squad around him. That said, he’s also firmly behind Olivier Giroud due to the vast difference in their contributions at the end of last season, something that was very much under his control. Abraham is undoubtedly up against it this season, given the reduced minutes, new competition and raised expectations to deal with. He’s no longer the hot new thing at the club, and his rough last few months have scuffed some of the luster off what was an exceptional breakout season.

It’s tragically ironic that Abraham comes into this season as a young backup who will be looking to make the most of the minutes he’s handed. In a more normal world, he would’ve played that role last season, entering this year as the uncontested week-to-week starter. Alas, whatever qualified as a “normal” world is now well behind us, and Abraham is left with this topsy-turvy career arc that isn’t exactly the smooth ascent to greatness he would have hoped for.

The path is there for him to reclaim his place as Chelsea’s scorer-in-chief, but it certainly looks like tough sledding. Almost anything will feel like a step backwards, and it would take a wild turn of events for him to even match what he produced last season, let alone improve on it. But there’s progress to be made in the struggle for relevance. For Tammy Abraham, that struggle starts now.