Aston Villa are closing in on the signing of Tammy Abraham after beating rival clubs with the offer of a long-term contract that demonstrates Unai Emery’s faith in the England striker.
It is understood Villa are prepared to give Abraham a 4½-year deal to entice him to return to the club where he had a stellar season as a young loanee in 2018-19.
Abraham, 28, was being pursued by other Premier League sides, including Everton, but has indicated that Villa is his preference after the Midlands club’s show of confidence.
The striker’s situation is not straightforward: he is on loan at Besiktas from Roma, and Villa must navigate delicate negotiations with the Turkish side, who have triggered an obligation to buy him.
Abraham made a significant contribution to Villa’s promotion-winning campaign in 2018-19
JAMIE MCPHILIMEY
Villa could offer Besiktas a player on loan to compensate for losing Abraham, who has scored 12 goals in 24 appearances for them in 2025-26, with Evann Guessand mooted as a potential option. Guessand, 24, joined Villa from Nice in the summer for £30million but is yet to score in 12 Premier League appearances.
Emery is keen to add firepower to his squad with Villa competing strongly on three fronts. They are third in both the Premier League and Europa League standings and through to the fourth round of the FA Cup, where they will host Newcastle United after Saturday’s impressive third-round win away to Tottenham Hotspur.
Abraham starred in Villa’s promotion season of 2018-19 when he scored 25 goals in 37 Championship games while on loan from Chelsea, and Emery is a long-term admirer.
Loans, injuries and penalty rows: Abraham’s career since leaving Chelsea
There are a number of reasons Tammy Abraham and Aston Villa will be keen to disprove the proverb “You can’t go home again” if, and when, he completes his move to Villa Park — one that both parties hope will end with silverware for the club and a place for the striker in Thomas Tuchel’s World Cup squad (Ian Whittell writes).
The 28-year-old, at present on loan at the Turkish side Besiktas, has endured a nomadic spell since officially ending his Chelsea career with a move to Roma in the summer of 2021.
But the chance to return “home”, to the club where he had such a successful loan spell, appears too tempting for either party to ignore.
That campaign will be front and centre in the narrative of Abraham’s return to English football after a 4½-year absence, and 3½ years on from winning the most recent of his 11 England caps in a goalless Nations League draw with Italy at Molineux.
Abraham seldom featured under Tuchel at Chelsea but could fight his way back into the England head coach’s World Cup plans
JAMES MARSH/REX
Scoring 16 goals in his first 20 games, including four in a 5-5 draw with Nottingham Forest, had Abraham well on the way to cult status with the Villa faithful but it was his gesture in the January transfer window, when he reportedly rejected the chance to join Premier League neighbours Wolverhampton Wanderers on loan, that really guaranteed that he will be afforded a hero’s welcome on his return to Villa Park.
It helps that John McGinn and Tyrone Mings remain in the Villa dressing room from that memorable campaign but, as the only player to have scored 25 league goals for the club in a season since Andy Gray in 1976-77, Abraham has plenty of goodwill in the bank.
Unai Emery is known to be a long-term admirer of the 6ft 4in striker and has previously investigated the prospect of signing him since taking over as Villa head coach in October 2022.
Emery needs reinforcements in attack with his side having relied considerably on Watkins and Rogers
CRAIG MERCER/ALAMY
Villa have won 13 of their past 15 league and cup games but have had to rely heavily on Morgan Rogers and Ollie Watkins, both of whom have seven league goals. Not only are Villa within six points of the top of the Premier League, and ten points clear of fifth-placed Brentford in the chase for Champions League football, but they are also still in contention for the Europa League and FA Cup.
If reintegrating himself at Villa looks straightforward for Abraham, doing the same with the national team appears far more challenging, given that it was Tuchel who allowed him to leave Chelsea for Roma in a £34million deal.
After the German took over from Frank Lampard as Chelsea head coach in January 2021, Abraham started only three Premier League games and one FA Cup tie for Chelsea, his only goal coming in the latter, away to Barnsley.
An ACL injury in 2023 stunted Abraham’s progress at Roma and he has been out on loan twice since
SILVIA LORE/GETTY IMAGES
“He was clearly not happy with the last half a year and maybe he has reason also not to be happy and maybe it was also my fault not to push him, not to trust him on the same level I maybe trusted other players,” Tuchel said just before selling Abraham to the Serie A side.
Abraham’s first season in Rome was an unmitigated success, with 27 goals in 53 league and cup games and a Conference League winner’s medal. However, the following campaign was far less productive and ended with an anterior cruciate ligament injury that sidelined him for the majority of 2023-24.
A missed penalty against Fiorentina — having ignored the claims of designated taker Pulisic — resulted in a public reprimand
GABRIELE MALTINTI/GETTY IMAGES
By August 2024 Roma had decided to loan him to AC Milan for the season, where his most newsworthy moment came when he ignored the claims of team-mate and designated penalty-taker Christian Pulisic before taking and missing a spot kick in a 2-1 loss to Fiorentina. A public reprimand from the manager Paulo Fonseca followed, as did a further loan move — the fifth of his career — to Turkey last summer.
Still, with the race for the right to be Harry Kane’s back-up at the World Cup this summer very much alive, a strong return from Abraham, in an impressive Villa team, could catapult him into contention.