So I threw together something really quick on Twitter, and figured I should make a blog article about it, as I am forcing myself to do this more often.
The other day I put up some data on Tammy from last year, and then got questioned about it by a friend of mine, who also provided some editorial on Tammy’s style. I thought to myself, I wonder how Tammy compares to Romelu Lukaku (the one that got away! OMG! lol) at a similar age. Makes sense, while not exactly the same player, they do share some similarities in style, and of course have that whole Chelsea connection.
I wasn’t intending this to be any sort of deep analysis, so I just grabbed a couple of charts from Understat.com because I knew they went back far enough to get the year for Lukaku I wanted, and they would have some expected data to delve just that tiny bit. Here are the two charts:
For Tammy, that’s last year’s PL production. For Romelu, that’s the 2016/17 season at Everton, again PL. Obviously Romelu played a lot more minutes, thus why his 25/8 season can look similar at a per 90 level to Tammy’s 15/3.
And it’s interesting that they do look similar:
Tammy Abraham 2019/20:
xGBuildup90 – 0.06
xGChain90 – 0.80
KP90 – 0.85
xA90 – 0.12
A90 – 0.12
Sh90 – 3.55
xG90 – 0.73
G90 – 0.60
Romelu Lukaku 2016/17:
xGBuildup90 – 0.11
xGChain90 – 0.58
KP90 – 1.29
xA90 – 0.15
A90 – 0.17
Sh90 – 3.03
xG90 – 0.46
G90 – 0.69
A casual glance tells you that Romelu’s a little more improved at this point than Tammy is, but he’s also about half a year older too, and had more PL experience under his belt, from playing at multiple smaller clubs. Very slightly higher G90 and A90 numbers, albeit lower xG90. Higher KP90 too. I think that’s something that is still in the needs improvement bucket for Tammy. So statistically they were similar.
And I think they are actually a bit similar in style of play. I think that Lukaku is probably better in the open field right now, although his touch probably isn’t as good, and I think while both are decent with their head, it’s not their forte. Nor is playing with their back to goal, either.
As we all know, Romelu Lukaku has become one of the better forwards in Europe as he’s grown and matured, even after his stumble at Manchester United. And I think if Tammy were to have a similar level of growth he’s going to be a fantastic forward for Chelsea for a long time to come.
