Roma striker Tammy Abraham has set a new Serie A record. He found the net twice in Roma’s final league match of the season on Friday, away at Torino to become the highest scoring English player in a Serie A season.
His second strike was his 17th, which took him past the previous best of 16 goals by Gerry Hitchens for Inter Milan in 1961/62. The result enabled Roma to finish sixth and book their place in the Europa League for next season.
The match was advanced 24 hours to allow Jose Mourinho’s side more time to prepare for the inaugural final of the Europa Conference League, which takes place in Tirana, Albania on Wednesday. They will face Dutch side Feyenoord in that match.
Abraham joined Roma from Chelsea last August for a fee of GBP 34 million, and has averaged more than a goal every two games for them. He has now scored 27 goals in 52 games in all competitions, and made himself a firm favourite with the local fans. He may yet have a big part to play in ensuring that Jose Mourinho gets his hands on more silverware next week.
Chelsea may have been looking at his form in Italy and had regrets about letting him go. At the time it was judged that he was surplus to requirements because they had just bought Romelu Lukaku from Inter Milan for a club record GBP 97.5 million.
However, while Abraham has thrived with his new club, Lukaku has struggled back in West London, and gave an ill-advised interview in January in which he openly admitted to missing Italy. There is even talk of him being sold this summer, having managed just 15 goals this season for Thomas Tuchel’s side.
Chelsea have the option of first refusal to buy Abraham back, but it will cost them double what they sold him for, and can only be triggered after he has completed two seasons with Roma. If he continues to perform at this level, they may be tempted to exercise that option.