Former Chelsea and West Ham Striker, Carlton Cole, has claimed that Tammy Abraham would be “the perfect person to lead that front line” at West Ham, as the out-of-favour- Chelsea man ponders his West London future.

Abraham has appeared just six times under Thomas Tuchel and with a worrying lack of game time at such a crucial stage in his career, Cole claimed that the 23year-old would be the ideal candidate to lead the line for The Hammers next season.

“If he was to come to West Ham, I’d welcome him with open arms,” said Cole. “He would be the perfect person to lead that front line.

“We’ve got Michail Antonio there, who is a top player, but Tammy could come in and challenge for that place and that’s what West Ham need, there’s no one to challenge Antonio. Tammy would be perfect.

“I’ve always liked a technical big striker and he could be the ideal fit for West Ham because they can play a bit of football this team, and he’d fit straight in, especially if we can keep [Jesse] Lingard.”

Abraham was the Blues’ top goal scorer by some distance last season with 17 goals in all competitions and with the forward’s future becoming increasingly uncertain with each passing game, Cole warned that the striker should weigh up his options very carefully over the coming weeks and months, in order to make the correct decision.

“With Tammy, I think he’s one of those players who needs an arm around him,” Cole told Bookmakers.co.uk.

“He needs the people around him to believe in him and he will perform if he gets that.

“When you look at his career to date, he’s done fantastic. I wouldn’t compare him to myself because he’s taken advantage of his chances at Chelsea much better than I did.

“He had a good run last season when they had to play the youth and he done well, but now he has to figure out what he wants to do with his career.

“Does he want to go somewhere and be the main man? Does he want to go to Aston Villa for example, and be their top striker? I know they like him there.

“He could go somewhere and be the focal point of an attack, a proper first choice striker with no squad rotation, like Didier Drogba used to be for Chelsea.

“He’s got to look at his career and his life at this point and think about where he wants to go with it. Does he want to stay with the big team or move on and make a name for himself and be a stalwart in the England set-up?”

Indeed, like Abraham, Cole rose through the Chelsea Academy and was faced with an almost identical dilemma at the same stage in his own career and revealed to Bookmakers.co.uk that although The Blues wanted him to stay in West London, he was fed up of not having a club to truly call his own so headed to the East-end, but whether the same move would be right for Abraham, Cole says, is unclear.

“I could have stayed at Chelsea when I was younger, not a lot of people know that – they asked me to stay – but I wanted to go and better myself. I would have been staying only to go on loan, but I didn’t want to do that anymore, I was sick of it, I wanted to call somewhere home.

“Does Tammy want the same? I don’t know, only he can answer that question. Hopefully he makes the right decision for himself and his family.

“Having been in the same situation, I found pastures new elsewhere because that’s what I felt I needed, and it worked out for me when I went to West Ham.”

To read the Bookmakers.co.uk article analysing Tammy Abraham’s Chelsea future in full, featuring the above quotes from Carlton Cole, click here: https://bookmakers.co.uk/news/should-tammy-abraham-leave-chelsea-this-summer