Tammy Abraham to wear ‘cursed’ Chelsea shirt number

Tammy Abraham is back with Chelsea after an impressive loan spell at Aston Villa, and the striker has confirmed his squad number for the 2019/20 season at Stamford Bridge.

Manager Frank Lampard has said Abraham will get chances to impress in the Chelsea team, who are under a transfer ban and lost Eden Hazard to Real Madrid this summer. The young England striker will have to step up in front of goal, but some might say the Chelsea number 9 shirt doesn’t have the richest of records.

 

Tammy Abraham to wear no.9 at Chelsea

Speaking after scoring against Barcelona in a pre-season friendly, Abraham talked about his new shirt number.

“I’m honoured to wear the No 9 at Chelsea. I spoke to the manager and he asked me if I was ready to take it. I said, “Yeah, I’m ready”.

I’m glad he offered it to me. I’ve heard all the rubbish about the No 9, but I’m here to play my game and do my best.

Football brings a lot of pressure. It drives me on. It gives me the extra belief. It was my first goal in a Chelsea shirt and now that’s out of the way it will be nice to push on and score some more.”

 

View this post on Instagram

 

Good win over Barcelona today. First goal in the shirt ⚽️? felt good! More to come ??#CFC #TA9

A post shared by Tammy Abraham (@tammyabraham1) on Jul 23, 2019 at 6:42am PDT

 

Former Chelsea Number 9s

A while back, we conducted a Chelsea former number 9s quiz on the back of Gonzalo Higuain moving to Chelsea on loan, and some of the names who have had the shirt since the year 2000 have been suspect to say the least. Steve Sidwell is perhaps the most bizarre name on the list and there have been some pretty expensive flops on there too including Fernando Torres and big loan signing Ramadel Falcao, who scored just one goal.

Other names include Khalid Boulahrouz and Franco Di Santo. Two players who should never wear a number 9 shirt.

The two most recent players have been Higuain and Alvaro Morata, who never settled into life at Chelsea and has since moved to Atletico Madrid.

 

Tammy Abraham on FPL

Ahead of the new season, Tammy Abraham may be a popular striker for Fantasy Football managers, and he’s currently £7.0m on the Premier League version of the game. Would he be one of your selections? If he gets a start in Chelsea’s first match of the season against Manchester United, he could be worth a punt so keep an eye on our Fantasy Football tips to see if we’re picking him as a player to watch.

Chelsea also have Olivier Giroud in their ranks as a striking option and Michy Batshuayi is still at the club after concluding his loan from Crystal Palace.

Get all our Premier League predictions for the new season.

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