Tammy Abraham has been in fine form for Roma, making his presence felt with fine performances.
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Tammy Abraham has been selected to the England squad for the World Cup qualifiers against Andorra and Hungary on the back of some impressive performances for his club side AS Roma. The 24-year-old switched to the Serie A club this summer from Chelsea for a deal worth GBP 34 million because of a lack of opportunities at Stamford Bridge. He rose to the limelight under former Chelsea manager Frank Lampard in 2019-20 but then fell out of favour under Thomas Tuchel. Abraham played only seven games for the Blues under the German tactician and was also left out of the victorious Champions League squad.
“I’ve always told myself no matter how good I get, I can always get better,” Abraham said.
“After my career, I can sit back and look at the things that I’ve done. I want to look back and say I’ve done everything I can, I left it all out there, I’ve worked as hard as I could.”
“Until then, every day grafting, trying to better myself. I want to be in the names of the best strikers in the would when they are ranking the strikers. That’s my aim and I won’t stop until I’m there. The easy option would probably be just to stick around and sit down. Chelsea is a massive club. They will compete and try and win trophies so the easy option would have been to do that. But I realised that I need to go out and prove myself, play some games. I took a decision and it was the right one.”
Abraham has made a very good start to his new life in Italy scoring four times in ten appearances for Roma.
He explained: “I think the first thing he [Mourinho] said to me, I picked up the phone and he was like: ‘Do you want to enjoy some sun or do you want to stay in the rain?’
“I laughed and I think at first I didn’t really think much of it when he was speaking because my mindset was that I wanted to be in the Premier League, I wanted to stay here. It was home, being around London, being in England. I had to open my wings a bit. I had to make a choice and I chose Italy. I don’t take it back.”
“When he speaks, you listen. He’s a good man and has helped me a lot so far. Hopefully we can build from there. I’ve learned so much tactically than I have in my lifetime. You need to learn off different managers.”
Abraham’s record at Chelsea was pretty good as he had netted 25 times and even finished the last season as the club’s joint-top scorer.
“Moving away from home and changing countries is always a brave thing to do,” he said.
“I do recommend going to English players who listen to me or see me and the likes of Jadon Sancho [who left Manchester City to join Borussia Dortmund before returning to Manchester United ] who have gone out and done it not to be scared. It is nice to go and learn a different culture. You learn about yourself. I do recommend it if that is on the table.”
He made his international debut in November 2017 and went on to make six appearances for the Three Lions with one goal to his name.
“It was a surprise to me,” the striker said about his England call-up.
“I woke up to a call from Gareth and I was still half asleep and when I answered he spoke to me and what he said was at first he could not guarantee me games as there were only two games but he found a way and brought me in. I am always delighted to play for my country,” he added.
