JUST a few years ago all the signs indicated that we were heading decisively into the post-Kevin-era but the community have fought back admirably. Most assists in the Premier League this season? Kevin (De Bruyne). Top scorer in the Premier League this season? Sergio Aguero yes (as befits a man who can feast on service from KDB), but also Kevin. Kevin Oghenetega Tamaraebi Bakumo-Abraham to be precise. The Chelsea forward has seven goals in his last three league outings for Frank Lampard’s up-and-coming west London youth firm and this weekend he comes up against Liverpool, a club who have made an occasional habit of raiding Stamford Bridge for striking talent in recent years but who surely have little chance of prising Abraham from the club he is finally being given a chance to represent. We need to talk about Kevin.
Possibly the only section of society not enchanted by Tammy Abraham’s flowering this season are fantasy football managers who disregarded him as a relatively budget option and have watched aghast as those seven goals were rattled home in quick succession. It’s a similar story with Norwich’s Teemu Pukki, a player whose season so far, like Abraham’s, has reeked of “well I see he’s scored again but if I know the Premier League then that won’t be carrying on for much longer! Oh, wait, he’s done it again.”
It seems churlish to point out that harbouring a suspicion that Abraham and Pukki are slightly fortunate to be flying so high in the charts is numerically sound, but I’m afraid that it is numerically sound. The pair lead the Premier League so far this season in terms of Expected Goals overperformance, a phrase almost custom-designed to enrage huge swathes of the football-loving community, but we are where we are. Based on xG, Abraham has scored 4.3 goals more than the average player would have historically, with Pukki in second place on +3.7. Behind them are a terrifyingly competent trio of Aguero (who has the best minutes-per-goal rate in Premier League history) and a reigning Golden Boot-combo of Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang and Sadio Mane. It seems fair to assume that those three are scoring above the expected rate because they are elite-class forwards, whereas Abraham and Pukki make up a rookie and flowering journeyman combination respectively. That could be hugely unfair to one or both of those players, and time will tell, but those bereft fantasy managers have to make a judgement on that pretty quickly.
A closer look at Abraham’s shot map for this season reveals a man who has scored with seven of his eight shots on target so far, and who is yet to have an effort of any kind from inside the six-yard box. It’s a hot streak, it’s hot feet, it’s hot hands, he’s so hot right now. Compare those conversion numbers with his top-flight season with Swansea in 2018-19, when Abraham had 15 shots on target and an xG of 6.9, which resulted in five goals. Not a terrible season by any means, and it preceded his 25 goal league campaign (from an xG of 25.4) at Aston Villa in the following campaign, but even so, possibly only Frank Lampard, Jody Morris and the rest of the Chelsea management team suspected Abraham would make such an impact this season.
While Chelsea line up with their fledglings on Sunday, Liverpool will roll out their superstar frontline and presumably test Lampard’s team more vigorously than they have been in previous league games.
When Divock Origi was injured against Newcastle at Anfield last weekend, Rhian Brewster was summarily substituted in an U23 game against Derby to protect him ahead of potential first team duties, yet he failed to make the bench in the club’s midweek defeat to Napoli. It’s eight and a half years since Chelsea took Fernando Torres from Anfield for £50m, six and a half years since Liverpool signed Daniel Sturridge and just over two years since Dominic Solanke made the same journey. The certainties of football can shift so rapidly that we are now in a situation where Brewster, if he even makes the trip to Stamford Bridge, may observe Abraham and marvel at the chance he is being given at one of the Premier League’s biggest clubs. That the team is Chelsea will take some getting used to for all of us.
