Old school hold-up play can often feel like a forgotten footballing dark art; an ancient practice from a bygone era (about ten years ago). It therefore makes perfect sense that it is Jose Mourinho who has persisted with the tradition.
Depending on who you ask, he is football’s very own Gandalf or Sauron. For the Mourinhoistas he is still the world’s greatest man-manager and its greatest tactician, for everyone else… well, he’s Mourinho.
But if you ask Tammy Abraham about the Portuguese manager, he’ll give you a glowing report. His performance against Leicester in the Conference League was a shining example of what the right environment and a manager’s faith can do for a player.
And his sensational hold-up play at the King Power was a symbol of the gladiator he has become.
Abraham is much more than a striker who just holds the ball up but, under Mourinho at Roma, he has rapidly levelled up and plunged plenty of his perk points into the ‘target forward’ class.
There was one moment at Leicester where he demonstrated the skill and poise required for the effective implementation of a technique often just dismissed as lobbing it up to the big man up top.
Abraham had little to do all game, but with the match tied in the 79th minute at 1-1, he was still both mentally and physically ready. He held his run, allowing James Justin to think he would be able to bring the ball down without any pressure before the striker pounced onto it, bursting forward.
The England international bore down on the Leicester box. A less composed striker might have tried to take on Johnny Evans and drive towards the goal himself, but Abraham has become one of Mourinho’s most important Roman Legionnaires and he had much more guile than to frivolously waste a golden chance such as this.
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READ: Mourinho’s turned Roma into Brazil 1970 and we can’t believe our eyes
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He patiently waited for Evans to make his move, and as the Northern Irish…
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