'He has courage' - Brendan Rodgers praises Tammy Abraham amid interest from Arsenal

Brendan Rodgers has hailed Tammy Abraham’s decision to leave Chelsea for Roma ahead of Leicester City’s clash with the Italian side on Thursday night.

The Foxes host Roma in the first-leg of the Europa Conference League semi-final, with both teams vying to become the inaugural winners of the competition.

It will be the first ever meeting between the two clubs, but Rodgers’ team are already familiar with Roma’s manager Jose Mourinho, as well as several ex-Premier League stars, including Rui Patricio, Chris Smalling and Henrikh Mkhitaryan.

Abraham represents another familiar name who has had an excellent maiden campaign in Italy.

‘Just looking at some of the games and looking at his numbers in terms of goals and assists over the course of this season he’s done very, very well,’ the Leicester boss said.

‘He’s obviously a threat, he knows the British game as well and we’ll have to keep an eye on him.’

Abraham was deemed surplus to requirements at Chelsea last summer due to the arrival of Romelu Lukaku, and was linked with a whole host of clubs, both home and abroad, before choosing Roma in a £36million transfer.

He’s the latest in a long line of young English players to move away from the Premier League, following the likes of Jadon Sancho, Jude Bellingham and Fikayo Tomori.

So far, it’s proven to be the right call, with the 24-year-old scoring 24 goals and making five assists across all competitions, stats that have seen him linked with a return to England via Arsenal.

‘For him it looks a great decision,’ Rodgers added.

‘Over the last few years, we’ve seen some of our young British talents going into Europe to play and get regular game time.

‘It was obviously difficult for him at Chelsea to play as much as he wanted to, but