Roma And Jose Mourinho Need Tammy Abraham To Begin Scoring Goals Again

Second season syndrome has truly hit Roma striker Tammy Abraham this season.

The English forward excelled beyond all expectations in the Italian capital during his first season at the club. Abraham scored 27 goals in all competitions in 2021/22, including 17 in Serie A, becoming the most prolific Englishman in Serie A for decades.

Moreover, he scored big goals, like the one against Leicester City in the Europa Conference League second leg at the King Power Stadium that helped Roma progress to the final. Abraham looked a sharper and more intelligent player than he had in England.

Say what you want about the current standard of Italian football, certainly in comparison to the ludicrous standards of the 1980s, 90s and early 00s when it was the best league in the world by quite some distance, but even today, most strikers realise it’s still a very difficult league to score in. Defences aren’t quite as catenaccio-based as they were 30 years ago, but scoring in Serie A has always been more arduous than other top European leagues.

This season, however, Abraham has found it more difficult. The striker has been off form and has been somewhat usurped by the presence of Paulo Dybala, who has unquestionably been Roma’s best attacking player this season. Only Napoli’s Victor Osimhen has missed more big chances in Serie A this season than Abraham, with 18. The former Chelsea striker is two behind Osimhen, yet with nowhere near
near
the amount of goals as the deadly Nigerian, who is on course to win the Capocannoniere crown, sitting atop the list on 21 league goals.

Abraham has six.

By the same stage last season, Abraham had scored double the amount of league goals, and there has been talk in the Italian media of Roma seriously contemplating moving the player on in the summer. The feeling is that if an offer comes in around the $65m (€60m) range, they will let him go. Abraham has stated that he’s happy in Italy, yet given Gareth Southgate’s head-puzzling decision to ignore players playing in Serie A before, during and after the World Cup, Abraham might feel like the time is right to return to England.

Yet on current form, there won’t be many top clubs clambering for his signing. It’s difficult to envisage any of Arsenal, Man City, Liverpool, Tottenham or Man United making enquiries this summer, likewise for former club Chelsea, who had a buyback option inserted into the deal when they sold him two summers ago.

Perhaps Newcastle, now one of the wealthiest teams in the world and with that need to go to the next level, could do with signing someone with Abraham’s quality and European experience. After all, Kieran Trippier made the same move, albeit from Atletico Madrid, to Newcastle in order to work his way back into the England squad, and it worked.

The player himself has said that he’s open to all possibilities, and isn’t ruling out either staying at Roma long term or leaving. Given Roma’s debt remains one of the highest in Italy, if Jose Mourinho wants funds to strengthen the team next season, Abraham may need to be sacrificed in order to bring said funds. Abraham is still appreciated by the Roma faithful, but he had lost his place in the starting XI in the weeks leading into the latest international break, with Mourinho opting for Dybala as a false nine of Andrea Belotti.

Yet with Roma still in the Europa League and fancied to go far, Abraham still has an important role to play. Should he regain his goal scoring mojo, then the season could end up with more silverware, and a big-money move back to England and into Southgate’s England squad.