Tammy Abraham will be offloaded by Chelsea to AS Roma for $40 million. Meanwhile, the Champions League winners signed Lukaku from Inter on a club-record transfer fee of $135 million.
The 23-year-old Abraham isn’t in Thomas Tuchel’s plans at Stamford Bridge for next season, so a move from the club has been predicted for months. AS Roma manager Jose Mourinho was eager to sign Abraham, who’s supposed to be the team’s leading striker next season. To complete this transfer triangle, Edin Dzeko will leave AS Roma to join Inter.
Abraham wasn’t even part of the squad for the Champions League final in May, which Chelsea won against Manchester City. Despite his limited playing time, Abraham finished the campaign as Chelsea’s joint top scorer with 12 goals. This summer, Chelsea also allowed another one of its strikers, Olivier Giroud, to move and join AC Milan.
Chelsea boss Tuchel spoke highly of Lukaku during an interview for Sky Sports in England. “Romelu is one of the guys like Haaland at Dortmund, Lewandowski at Bayern, Harry Kane at Tottenham, who is a real number 9, who loves to score and who has a presence in the box,” Tuchel said. “This is the kind of profile we’re looking for and, if it’s possible, to convince agents and clubs we will do our best,” the manager argued.
🗣"Romelu is like one of the guys, who is a real number 9, who likes to score, but this is not a secret."
Chelsea boss Thomas Tuchel spoke about what Romelu Lukaku can offer a team pic.twitter.com/bOQ1zbT2FO
— Football Daily (@footballdaily) August 10, 2021
Timo Werner is also excited about the prospect of playing alongside Lukaku. “He’s probably one of the best three strikers in the world at the moment. It always helped me having a big striker alongside me,” Werner said.
🗣 "He's probably one of the best three strikers in the world at the moment. It always helped me having a big striker alongside me."
Timo Werner says playing with a striker like Romelu Lukaku at Chelsea will help his own game pic.twitter.com/IJAx2sxLlI
— Football Daily (@footballdaily) August 10, 2021
Lukaku is currently in Monaco with his agent to finalize the documents ahead of his new life in London. He’ll then return to England and be unveiled at Chelsea. Lukaku was previously at the club between 2011 and 2014, featuring in 15 games, without scoring any goals.