Report: Swansea beats rivals to Tammy Abraham loan
Swansea City is set to unveil Tammy Abraham on a season-long loan after beating Newcastle United and Brighton & Hove Albion to the Chelsea hotshot's signature, BBC Sport reports.
The paperwork for the deal is set to be completed on Wednesday.
Abraham, 19, had a prolific first full season in professional football in a temporary stint with Bristol City. He netted 23 times in the 2016-17 campaign, setting a record for the most goals scored in one season by a teenager in the 20-year Championship era. It was a justification of the hype that surrounded the striker when he starred in Chelsea's victorious FA Youth Cup runs of 2014-15 and 2015-16.
Swansea manager Paul Clement will be familiar with Abraham from his time in the Blues' coaching setup, and it's perhaps this connection that saw the Welsh outfit beat Newcastle's and Brighton's interests.
Abraham had apparently sought assurances from Newcastle boss Rafa Benitez that he'd get minutes on Tyneside despite there being Dwight Gayle, Aleksandar Mitrovic, Daryl Murphy, Ayoze Perez, and academy product Adam Armstrong battling for minutes in attack.
Brighton would've appeared an easier squabble for first-team inclusion, with 33-year-old Glenn Murray often going relatively untroubled spearheading the frontline during last season's promotion.
At Swansea, Fernando Llorente was the focal point at the front of the lineup in last term's successful survival bid, but Abraham is a different kind of forward altogether: much less aerial threat, yet a purveyor of devastating pace.
Swans' chairman Huw Jenkins has stressed the need to build the squad rather than relinquish its best talent this summer. Icelandic midfielder Gylfi Sigurdsson is reportedly of interest to Everton, while England Under-21 defender Alfie Mawson is drawing admiring glances from Tottenham Hotspur.
"It is a slow market as the players have been away on international duty. We want to keep our best players and to that end Gylfi Sigurdsson and Fernando Llorente had good seasons with us last year," he told BBC Sport.
"Naturally that causes interest and there is plenty of media coverage, but our aim is to keep our best players and try to add to that."