Makélélé urges Tammy Abraham to follow in the footsteps of Didier Drogba

Claude Makélélé spent four seasons playing and winning things alongside Didier Drogba at Chelsea before finishing his career at PSG and moving into coaching. Since January of this year, he’s been the assistant to Paul Clement at Swansea City, joining the former Chelsea assistant who had followed Carlo Ancelotti from Chelsea to Real Madrid to PSG to Bayern before striking out on his own for the second time. In short, there are plenty of Chelsea connections at Swans these days on which we can build a strong relationship, which is why it was so promising that young Tammy Abraham chose to join them on loan rather than, say, Newcastle United or Brighton.

Clement and Makélélé made Tammy first-choice almost from day one, and the 20-year-old has retained that position even after Fernando Llorente was replaced by Wilfried Bony. While the team’s results have not been stellar and they’re already mired in a relegation fight, Tammy does have two of their three total goals in the league, adding one more for good measure in the League Cup.

Hopefully, Abraham is just getting started.

“He’s young and he has time on his side. He wants to be one of the best strikers in the Premier League. He gets an example in the way Drogba and Eto’o play. But to do that he must work like they did.

“Can he play for Chelsea? I hope so. He needs to be successful with Swansea first and learn more and more to come back and push for Antonio Conte’s team. It’s going to be difficult. He needs to adapt very well but we will push him. But he has to show the ambition to reach the top.

“I tell him to do everything: run, fight. Some young players think about dribbling but they need to understand about their team-mates. He is fast. Go in space and you’ll make the difference for your team-mates. It all depends on him. He’s good. But he has to push himself and learn more. Then he can be one of the best strikers in the Premier League.”

-Claude Makélélé; source: Evening Standard

Abraham was one of the top goalscorers in the Championship last season, but as we’ve seen with Patrick Bamford recently, that’s no guarantee of success at the next level. So far so good however for Tammy, who’s also scoring at youth-international level while England and Nigeria vie for his services. With a coach like Makélélé able to push him and keep him grounded this season, Abraham could indeed be looking at a bright Chelsea future.