Chelsea to listen to offers around £40m for Tammy Abraham — report

Timo Werner’s miss against Real Madrid last night in the Champions League semifinal first leg has only raised scrutiny on Tammy Abraham’s situation at Chelsea. While there is more to a striker’s game than goalscoring, failing to do what is mostly expected of you is bound to raise questions on whether there is a way for an increment, even if marginal, that can get those scores on top of doing everything you are already doing right.

Werner, as a brand new signing with plenty of upside, will not get sold. But Tammy, with a contract that will be over in two years and barely seeing any playing time under manager Thomas Tuchel, does not have such privilege. According to a report from the Telegraph, Chelsea will be listening to offers around £40m for the striker.

Tammy’s sale would only be part of a bigger plan to add new offensive options to the team, with veteran striker Olivier Giroud also likely to depart at the end of the season. Funds from Abraham’s sale, along with AC Milan activating Fikayo Tomori’s £25m buying option and Kurt Zouma also being out of favour and supposedly available in the market, would be used to finance the purchase of a new big-name striker.

The most common alternative for players such as Tammy would be setting up a loan move, so he can get himself back to a groove that could rehabilitate his chances at Stamford Bridge. But the striker would prefer a new permanent home instead.

Amidst suitors for Abraham, the names of Leicester City and West Ham are the first to arise. But it is likely that there will be an upsurge in interest from other Premier League clubs, and also from clubs in Europe, once the news of the 23-year-old availability is spread around football boards.

Big shoes to fill demand big players. As those who have been following the rumour mill already know, Borussia Dortmund’s Erling Haaland is the main target for Chelsea (and pretty much every other big club on Earth) for that role. Otherwise we might take the route of bringing back home old acquaintances by going after Inter Milan’s Romelu Lukaku (even though he might not be too inclined to leave Antonio Conte’s side next summer).

There is no denying either Haaland or Lukaku would be upgrades to both Werner and Abraham. But that is dependent on being able to bring either of them to Stamford Bridge, and that is easier said than done.

In an ideal world, we would not even be thinking about upgrading on a guy who scored 34 goals in 45 matches in the season previous to his arrival at the club, and getting said upgrade by selling the club’s top goalscorer. But it is what it is.