Clement: Tammy has bright future ahead

Paul Clement reckons Swansea City have pulled off a coup after landing Chelsea starlet Tammy Abraham on a season-long loan deal.

England Under-21 international Abraham is to get a first proper taste of Premier League football in Swans colours after opting for a move to the Liberty Stadium despite interest from a number of other sides.

And Swans boss Clement is confident the move will benefit both club and player.

“I am delighted Tammy is going to be with us here at Swansea and we must say thank you to Chelsea for agreeing to the deal,” Clement said.

“Tammy was sought after and he had options. I am just glad that he chose to come here and develop his career with us.

“He is a player who has got a bright future ahead of him.

“What we are hoping is that we are going to be good for him and he will be good for us.”

Abraham’s only previous Premier League game-time came at the back-end of the 2015-16, when he made two substitute appearances under then Chelsea boss Guus Hiddink.

But Clement believes the 19-year-old, who signed a new five-year Chelsea deal before clinching his switch to the Swans, is ready for the top tier after shining while on loan at Bristol City last season.

“Although he doesn’t have experience of Premier League football, what he has shown is that whatever level he has played at, he has scored goals,” Clement added.

“That’s been the case through his youth career, into under-23 football and most impressively what he did last season.

“He scored 23 goals in the Championship plus three goals in the cup – 26 goals for a team who were down towards the bottom of the table for long periods in the season.

“What we are hoping is that he is going to keep that form going.

“We believe there is a good environment here in which he can develop and help us score goals.”

Abraham joined Chelsea aged just eight years old, and was a young boy when Clement was the Blues’ assistant boss under Carlo Ancelotti.

However, the Swans manager has been aware of Abraham’s promise for some time.

“When I was at Chelsea Tammy was in the academy. He would have been playing for the under-12s and under-13s,” Clement said.

“But since I left the club, I have kept in contact with people who have worked with him through the age groups.

“He has just signed a long contract at Chelsea so they have obviously got a lot of belief in him.

“They believe the right thing for him at this time is to go and get further experience. He did well at Bristol City and now he is going to want to do well here.

“From my conversations with Tammy, I can see he is very ambitious and very enthusiastic. We are very happy to have him.”

Clement argues the “style of football” the Swans are known for, rather than his Stamford Bridge connections, was the key factor in clinching the Abraham deal.

And he feels the Swans’ new attacking recruit has the qualities to thrive in SA1.

“He has impressive physical stature. He is 6ft 4in tall, he is lean, he is quick and he likes to get in behind defences,” Clement continued.

“For his size, he is a goal-poacher. He scores a lot of goals in and around the penalty area.

“There are things, as with any player, that he needs to work on, and we believe we can help him with those.”

Having been in action over the summer at the Uefa European Under-21 Championship, Abraham will join up with his new team-mates during the Swans’ pre-season trip to America.

“I think I have got good options up front,” Clement said.

“We have Tammy, Fernando Llorente, Jordan Ayew and Oli McBurnie.

“They are our four out-and-out strikers. I see all those players as being able to play down the middle on their own, or they can be paired up and in some cases play one behind another one.

“They are good options and that is what we need going into a tough Premier League season.”