AC Milan continued their trend of signing strikers on deadline day as they officially welcomed Tammy Abraham to the club last Friday from AS Roma.
In 2023 the window finished with the signing of Jovic just before the summer window closed, and this year Milan announced the addition of Abraham from Roma on a loan deal. The striker has signed a contract with the club until 30 June 2025 and will wear the No.90 shirt.
The announcement came just moments after the Giallorossi confirmed the signing of Alexis Saelemaekers, who went the other way – also on a one season loan deal – as part of the operation between the two clubs.
Milan fans got a positive glimpse of what he can offer during the 2-2 draw with Lazio as he came off the bench to instantly set up the equaliser, but what else can they expect?
Background
Abraham joined Chelsea at U8s level back in 2004 and made his way through the ranks, achieving honours such as the UEFA Youth League and the FA Youth Cup in 2015 and 2016. In the 2015–16 edition of the UEFA Youth League, he scored eight goals in nine matches, making him the tournament’s second-top scorer behind Roberto.
He continued his reputation of being the man for the big occasion in the FA Youth Cup final when he scored the winner against Manchester City. It capped a brilliant couple of seasons (2014–15 and 2015–16) in which he bagged 74 goals in 98 matches across all competitions.
It was towards the back end of the latter campaign that he began training with the first team under the then-head-coach Guus Hiddink, who handed him a first team debut on 11 May 2016 during a 1-1 Premier League draw with Liverpool. His home debut came the following week at Stamford Bridge in a draw with Leicester.
Chelsea knew they had a talent on their hands that had to be handled in the right way and so a trio of loan spells to Championship sides followed to get him more up to speed, firstly to Bristol City where he netted 26 goals in 48 games across all competitions.
The next season at Swansea City wasn’t quite as successful as he had to make do with eight goals and four assists across 39 games, but then with Aston Villa he scored 26 in 40 games and that persuaded his parent club to bring him back and hand him the No.9 shirt.
In August 2019, Abraham scored his first Chelsea goals when he netted a brace in a 3–2 away win over Norwich City and then the next month he got a hat-trick in a 5–2 win over Wolves, at the age of just 21 years and 347 days making him the youngest ever player to score three in a game for the London club.
Abraham scored his first Champions League goal in a 2-1 win away to Lille in October of that year and he would end the season with 18 goals across all competitions. Nonetheless, Chelsea invested heavily in the attack by buying Kai Havertz and Timo Werner from Germany.
The Englishman still finished 2020-21 as the joint-top scorer with 12 goals, but the summer of 2021 brought the right time to move on and he signed for Serie A club Roma on 17 August 2021 on a five-year contract, with the transfer fee reported to be €40m.
Chelsea included an €80m buy-back clause as part of the deal to sell him, which could only be triggered after the player had completed two seasons with Roma and it shows how much they still believed in him even to that point.
Abraham made his Serie A debut on 22 August 2021, assisting twice as Roma beat Fiorentina 3-1, then his first goal for his new club came not long after in a 4–0 win against Salernitana. He would end the season with 27 goals including nine in the Conference League, which Roma won by beating Feyenoord in the final.
The following season was a bit more stop-start for Abraham, who scored only eight goals in Serie A compared more than double the previous campaign, then in the final game of the 2022-23 season he suffered a tear of his anterior cruciate ligament.
Last season was mostly made up of recovery but he did feature 12 times towards the end of the campaign and registered a goal and an assist. He played against Milan during the Europa League quarter-final tie, which the Giallorossi won.
In terms of his international exploits, Abraham was eligible to represent Nigeria through his paternal lineage and the Nigerian Football Association expressed an interest in getting him to play for them, but the striker always had his heart set on England.
In March 2015 he began playing for England U18s, netting a brace against Switzerland, then the following year he was named in Aidy Boothroyd’s squad for the U19 European Championship, featuring in three of the four games.
Tammy’s first England U21 call-up came on 29 September 2016 and then the year after that he was named in the squad for the UEFA European U21 Championship in Poland, scoring in the semi-final against Germany.
He played in the U20 side for the Toulon Tournament in France, scoring against China and Qatar in the groups. Finally, in November 2017, he was one of three uncapped players called up to the senior England team for friendlies against Germany and Brazil.
The forward made his debut against the former on 10 November in a 0-0 draw, and his first goal for the Three Lions arrived on 14 November 2019 in a 7–0 win over Montenegro in Euro 2020 qualifying.
At club level with Roma his future became uncertain after the signing of Artem Dovbyk from Girona, and thus he decided to move on. A return to the Premier League as mentioned – more specifically West Ham were linked – yet the chance to reunite with his close friend Fikayo Tomori proved too tempting to turn down.
Strengths and weaknesses
Tammy Abraham is very much a modern centre-forward, in the sense that there is very little he cannot do owing to his well-rounded skill set. Above all, he combines his size and speed well in certain moments to do things not many others in Serie A can do.
One of his big strengths is his movement, more specifically targeting pockets of space and charging into them using his impressive athleticism. This can be in the form of either runs off the shoulder of the centre-back or runs across the back line to drag the defence.
Strangely, the Englishman seems to be best when he has less time to think about what he is going to do, relying on instinct both in his build-up and in his finishing. We saw this first hand in his debut against Lazio as he played some lovely one-touch passes, eventually setting up Leao.
At 1.94m, Abraham has the frame to be able to score goals even if there are defenders between him and the net. He can receive it with his back to goal, spin and fire, or he can use the old school ‘bully’ move to create space for himself and shoot.
His aerial ability gives a more direct option when a team is under pressure, something that could be useful for Milan in their attempts to play out from the back, and despite his size he is also very useful in tight spaces thanks to possessing good close control and awareness.
As Coaches Voice point out, he was used in various ways during his time at Roma which suggest a certain versatility too. Under Jose Mourinho he was often the focal point in a 4-2-3-1, and then there was times he had a partner in a 3-5-2 system, with Lorenzo Pellegrino playing off him mostly.
Regardless of if he was the lone striker or in a pairing, the ex-Swansea man would always be leading the line and would sit right on the opposition defensive line, to keep them sharp and push them back while being ready to pounce on any service that might arrive.
This is something that owes to him being a movement-based striker, and in an interview he explained himself how much emphasis he places on being smart when he doesn’t have the ball let alone when he does have it.
“When I’m playing against a top striker. I do watch the little things, for example, their movement, where they position themselves, where they are in the box, their timings to get into the box, etc. Me, I take them little ideas and try to add it to mine [his game].”
As the graphic below from Opta shows, Abraham has very much been a penalty area striker wherever he has been. He thrives on operating inside the box, creating and pouncing on chances, and being someone to aim at.
So what are the areas that he is still working on? Well, in addition to trying to make himself more regularly available from a fitness point of view, there are certain aspects of Abraham’s game that have frustrated those who believe he is very close to being truly complete.
First of all, he can flounder when further away from goal. His input in build-up play is solid when it is simple but he can struggle when he gets the ball under pressure or perhaps needs to take more than just one touch to let his team-mates get up field. He can hold it up and distribute, but Harry Kane he is not.
That is not a problem when there is plenty of quality service coming into the area or just outside it, yet Milan have been accused of starving their strikers of that in the past couple of years. Olivier Giroud often resembled a forlorn and lonely figure upfront, though Abraham should at least inject more energy.
Statistical comparison
One of the most important aspects to address when it comes to Abraham is his reliability and just how many minutes he has been able to play in his senior career.
With Bristol City in 2016-17 he amassed 3,414 minutes played over 41 appearances and therefore remained fit for large stretched, while for Swansea is was just 1,726 across 31 games. At Aston Villa, he hit 3,138 in 37 games, starting all of them.
The 2019-20 campaign back with Chelsea brought 34 appearances and 2,215 minutes, then the next season was only 1,040 in 22 games (just 12 starts).
His first couple of seasons at Roma brought 3,084 minutes and 2,189 minutes across 37 and 38 appearances respectively in 2021-22 and 2022-23, then last season he played only 242 mins. To simplify, a big part of the battle is making sure he can contribute with game time.
The beauty of FBRef is that it allows us to rewind back to a particular season and compare Tammy Abraham with other strikers in the league at that time, so we have picked his 2021-22 debut campaign with Roma given that those are the levels he is aspiring to reach once again.
Abraham was in the 75th percentile (better than 74% of other Serie A strikers in that season) for Goals per 90, the 92nd for Expected Goals per 90, the 85th for Shot Creating Actions from shots and the 82nd for Goal Creating Actions from shots.
He actually ranks quite highly for tackles in the defensive third (76th percentile) and % of dribblers tackled (85th). The Englishman is in the 80th percentile for % of aerial duels won, the 75th for miscontrols and the 75th for dispossessions.
In other words, the 26-year-old does not particularly excel in a particular area such and having elite level finishing or being someone who might get more assists than goals like Alvaro Morata, but is well-rounded in his skillset and is very much the first line of defence from an out-of-possession standpoint.
Some more miscellaneous stats include the fact that in the last 20 Serie A seasons, only two players scored more goals than Romelu Lukaku in their first league season with Roma and one was Abraham (17 in 2021-22). The other was Mohamed Salah (14 in 2015-16).
The Cobham graduate became the sixth Roma player to score 10 goals in major European competition since 1/1/2000, along with Edin Dzeko (32), Francesco Totti (22), Daniele De Rossi (11), Mirko Vucinic (10) and Antonio Cassano (10).
Among players experiencing their first season in Serie A, only Rodolfo Volk (21 in 1929-30) scored more goals than Tammy Abraham (17) did with AS Roma.
As mentioned, he scored nine goals in Roma’s victorious Europa Conference League. The only English players to score more in a single season in a major European competition (excl. quals) are Alan Shearer (11 in 2004-05 UEFA Cup) and Stan Bowles (11 in 1976-77 UEFA Cup).
Using FBRef, we can compare Abraham’s career averages to those of Alvaro Morata, Luka Jovic and Olivier Giroud. Firstly, the Englishman has a better shot on target percentage at 52%, compared to 45.1% for the Spaniard, 36.9% for the Serb and 38.4% for the Frenchman.
A good metric at measuring chance conversion is G-xG, which is the actual goals scored minus their Expected Goals (quality of chances, effectively). Tammy is -9.6 which means he has scored that many less than the chances suggest he should have, with Morata at -3.6 and Jovic at -0.4. Only Giroud has a positive at +0.4.
Abraham has a career average pass completion percentage of 67.5%, which puts him above Giroud (66.8%) but below both Morata (69.2%) and Jovic (73.6%).
In terms of assists, Tammy has 19 for his career and his Expected Assists number is at 10.4. Morata by comparison has 50 assists from 15.2 xA, with Jovic on 19 from 7 expected and Giroud a whopping 63 from 9.9 expected.
Conclusion
The success of Abraham’s time at Milan – and most likely whether it is one year or multiple – almost entirely depends on whether he is able to stay fit. If he is then he will contribute because of the sheer amount of games to come, and if not then it is at least low-risk from an economic point of view.
Transfer rating: 6/10