Jose Mourinho hailed the ambition displayed by Tammy Abraham after the forward joined Roma from Chelsea on Tuesday.
Abraham has signed a five-year contract with the Serie A club to fill the void left by Edin Dzeko’s departure from Inter.
Roma have paid 40million euros (£ 34.1million) to secure the services of a player who made his Chelsea debut in 2016 and has played six times for his country.
Mourinho believes leaving the Premier League for a new challenge shows Abraham has high aspirations.
“With Tammy, I prefer to say ‘wait and see’,” Mourinho said in a video posted to Roma’s Twitter account.
“I say that with confidence. I’ve known him since he was little. He never played for me because he was 14, 15, 16 when I was at Chelsea, but I know him very well. .
“I know him as a player, as a person and in terms of his mentality. I know how he made the decision to leave the Premier League, which is always difficult for an English player.
“That tells me a lot about him because when you leave the Premier League you do it because you are ambitious.
“You are leaving because you want to come back to your national team, because you want to play in the World Cup, because you want to be successful outside of England, where few English players have had brilliant careers.
“He comes here with that ambition and we hope to see his best qualities as a player.”
Chelsea are said to receive an additional € 5million in bonuses and have the option of re-signing the 23-year-old, who fell further down the pecking order when Romelu Lukaku returned to Stamford Bridge.
After scoring 15 Premier League goals for the Blues in the 2020-21 season when Frank Lampard was in charge, Abraham saw his opportunities dwindle under Thomas Tuchel last season.
The 23-year-old only started three league games after Tuchel’s appointment at the end of January, despite not making the round of 16 of the Champions League at all as Chelsea won the trophy in Port.
He also missed the England squad for Euro 2020, with Dominic Calvert-Lewin preferred by Gareth Southgate as a direct replacement for Harry Kane.
Abraham is hoping for the same Serie A success as fellow England international Chris Smalling, who rejuvenated his career with a loan transfer to Roma in 2019-20, which was made permanent last year.
