Southgate heeds Mourinho advice as Abraham granted late England recall

Tammy Abraham after Roma win

Tammy Abraham has been rewarded for his fine start to life with Roma with a first England call-up since November 2020, while his former Chelsea teammate Ben Chilwell has also been drafted in.

Abraham left Chelsea this summer after falling down the pecking order under Thomas Tuchel. He took the big decision to move abroad with Roma, under the guidance of a certain Jose Mourinho. So far it has been paying off and his recognition has now arrived from back home.

To date, the striker has scored four goals and provided three assists for Mourinho’s men in Italy, across 10 appearances in all competitions.

Gareth Southgate has been keeping a close eye on Abraham, having given him all six of his England caps so far. The last of those came in November 2020, but he hasn’t started for the Three Lions since his debut in 2017.

After scoring 12 goals for Chelsea across all competitions last season, he now gets another chance to show what he can do.

World Cup qualifiers against Andorra and Hungary are on the horizon for Southgate’s side. With Harry Kane and Ollie Watkins the only other centre-forwards in the squad, Abraham may fancy his chances of earning at least a seventh cap.

So far he only has one goal for his country but he will be keen to demonstrate how much he has been improving in Italy.

Mourinho said last month of Abraham: “I am trying to create a monster of a forward for Gareth Southgate.

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“Unless he doesn’t have proper eyes and still not call him up with the England national team, then I would suggest for Tammy to switch countries.

“He deserves more caps under his name.”

Southgate appears to have been listening and will get to work with Abraham again over the next couple of weeks.

He is not the only player in the squad to have worked his way back into Southgate’s mind thanks to his form in Serie A. Fellow former Chelsea academy product Fikayo Tomori, thriving at AC Milan, was also one of the headline inclusions in the latest England group.

One Chelsea man in, one out

England have confirmed a couple of other adjustments to their squad for the October international break. Ben Chilwell has come into the squad, while Reece James has dropped out.

James’ inclusion recently caught Chelsea boss Thomas Tuchel by surprise due to his current injury status. Tuchel joked that he thought James would be playing for the water polo team because he is still rehabilitating in the pool.

Sense has prevailed and James will not be travelling with the England setup. However, clubmate Chilwell has been drafted in.

It has been a difficult season so far for the left-back, who has lost his starting place at Chelsea to Marcos Alonso. But he remains an important player after also being part of the England squad that reached the Euro 2020 final, although he did not play a single minute in that tournament.

Luke Shaw is the man he will mainly be competing for a place with during the current break.

England are away in Andorra on Saturday at 7:45pm UK time. Then, they return home to host Hungary at Wembley on Tuesday 12th October, at the same kick-off time.


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