Former Chelsea manager Jose Mourinho has praised new striker Tammy Abraham for having the ambition to join him at Roma after Romelu Lukaku completed his £98million west London return this summer.
Tammy Abraham said: “You can sense when a club really wants you – and Roma made their interest clear immediately. Roma is a club that deserves to be fighting for titles and trophies. I’ve had the experience of winning major trophies and I want to be in those competitions again – so I want to help this team to achieve that and get to the level where Roma should be. It’s a massive honour to be the No.9 at this club and I just can’t wait to get started and to help the team.”
The 23-year-old’s new manager Mourinho has spoken about Abraham’s move to his club after Edin Dzeko’s surprise exit, describing it as a coup for the Italian side.
Jose Mourinho said: “In an incredibly difficult market and in a financial situation that is difficult for every, or more precisely, almost every club, having the willingness, the ambition, the respect for the fans and reacting in this way after losing Dzeko and bringing in Tammy Abraham was a real coup. He’s never played for me because he was a 14, 15 and 16-year-old boy when I was at Chelsea, but I know him very well. I know him as a player, a person and in terms of his mentality. I know how he made the decision to leave the Premier League, which is always tough for an English player. That tells me so much about him because when you leave the Premier League, you do so because you’re ambitious. You leave because you want to get back into your national team, because you want to play at the World Cup, because you want success outside of England, where not that many English players have had brilliant careers. He comes here with that ambition and we hope to see his best qualities as a player.”
Roma kick off their Europa Conference League campaign this Thursday against Turkish side Trabzonspor, followed by their Serie A opener against Fiorentina three days later.Furthermore, these are two opportunities for Chelsea fans to see how their academy graduate fairs in a new league.
