THOMAS TUCHEL has praised Tammy Abraham for refusing to give up on his Chelsea dream.
Head coach Tuchel particularly admires the striker for beating the club’s loan system that has seen so many other hopefuls fall away.
Academy graduate Abraham was farmed out to Bristol City, Swansea and Aston Villa before finally getting a chance at his parent club in the summer of 2019.
Tuchel said: “I like that he made his way on the loans and overcame obstacles in his career when he went on loan. He always scored for his teams.
“He has the spirit to make it at Chelsea. This is one of the toughest challenges you can face but he is ready.
“It is one of the toughest challenges you can have. It is not always straight up.
“It is sometimes bumpy, sometimes you go out on loan, but I like that the academy boys accept the challenge to make it here.
“I feel that they absolutely want to make it as Chelsea players, not only as Premier League. They want to be Chelsea players.
“This is the spirit we want to feel. When we feel the spirit, combined with that talent, we will push them.”
Abraham scored the goal last Thursday that put Chelsea into the last eight of the FA Cup.
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In a difficult tie at Barnsley he also kept them in it with a goalbound clearance.
Tuchel said: “He played well at Barnsley because he did not only score the decisive goal but was also important in defensive set-pieces, he cleared many situations for us with his head.
“He was absolutely ready to suffer and for that he has all my credit.
“It’s a good new start for him to step up and show that he is important for us.”
Public shows of emotion will be commonplace in Tuchel’s regime at Stamford Bridge.
The German is not looking to be everyone’s favourite and says he can be a hard-nut if need be.
But he insists diplomacy will always be the first option and dressing downs will be out in the open.
Tuchel said: “Can I be a shouter? Yes, if it is absolutely necessary.
“If you do it all the time nobody would listen because it becomes a habit and everybody gets used to it.
“So the goal is to stay unpredictable, to be reasonable most of the time.
“It is important to me to build trust and a relationship that we can rely on and not shouting at people and insult people in front of a group, that is unacceptable.
“But if we have to point out things clearly I am a big fan of doing it on front of the whole group.
“If we have behaviour that does harm to the group, that is causing trouble for the team on the pitch we should tell the players individually.
“But also I believe strongly that the group has to handle it and everybody has to have the personality to swallow some criticism in front of the group.
“I don’t do stuff to be loved by everybody in the dressing room.”
Former Paris Saint-Germain boss Tuchel is holed up in a hotel room with just a cheesy crime novel for company while he settles into his new job and while the Covid pandemic stops his family joining him.
He said: “My family stays for the moment in Paris to finish school with the kids and at the moment it isn’t easy — impossible, in fact — to travel for all of us.
“I miss them a lot and Valentine’s Day was a Zoom meeting family-wise which is pretty sad.
“But you know, we are still privileged, safe and healthy so I don’t want to complain too much.”
