Alan Shearer and Ian Wright may not be the world’s greatest pundits, but they are two of the greatest (Premier League) goalscorers of all time. Between them, they amassed nearly 750 goals at senior professional level, for club and country. It’s fair to say that if they know anything, it’s how to play center forward effectively.
Tammy Abraham is currently on 75 senior professional goals. He can center forward effectively as well, but he also has much to learn yet. Fortunately, he’s just 22, and has shown plenty of willingness to do so.
He might not ever watch this video, but hopefully similar things are being pointed out to him by the Chelsea coaching staff — both the good and the bad. Things like getting ahead of your marker, not letting frustrations or missed passes from teammates get to you, and making smarter decisions with or without the ball are things that can be taught and can be learned and can be put into action on the pitch.
Abraham’s already proven himself a good goalscorer. But he can become a great goalscorer. Shearer scored 22 goals in his age-22 season, his first season for Newcastle (16 in the Premier League). Wright scored just 9 in what was his debut season, back in the second division with Crystal Palace. Abraham, with 15 goals (13 in the league), is already ahead of where Wright was, and could easily match Shearer’s production.
Chelsea could obviously use a strong second source of goals as well — as Lampard has made it quite clear over the past few weeks — but Tammy could be, should be, and hopefully will be a massive force for us for a long time to come.