Ferdinand tips Abraham to score a 'tremendous' amount of goals and says Rashford could learn from him

Rio Ferdinand has praised Chelsea's Tammy Abraham and has charged Marcus Rashford with emulating his England team-mate’s ruthlessness.

Abraham scored the first goal for the Blues as they beat Lille 2-1 to book their place in the knockout rounds of the Champions League, at the expense of last season’s semi-finalists Ajax. The Dutch team finished behind Chelsea in the third spot and slipped into the Europa League as a result.

The 22-year-old now has 13 strikes in all competitions this year and Ferdinand thinks that’s a testament to his desire to put himself in the right positions to put the ball in the back of the net.

“He’s going to score a tremendous amount of goals because what he does is he wants to be in between the sticks, he wants to be in the centre of the goals to score goals,” Ferdinand told BT Sport.

“He’s somebody who’s hungry and got a desire to score.

“It’s a very good finish, it’s clean and clinical. He makes it look easy, it’s not an easy finish.

“What I love about Tammy is his first instinct, his first thought is ‘get me in there, get me in there to hurt the opposition, get me in there to score goals.’”

The former Manchester United centre half then went on to compare Abraham to another plying his trade at Old Trafford.

Ferdinand suggested that if Rashford were to get into the same areas as the former Aston Villa loanee, then he might score even more goals. The England striker is enjoying his most prolific season to date, matching the Chelsea man’s tally so far.

“It’s the positioning, some people will tell [Marcus] Rashford to get in that position and he’ll score five, six, seven, eight goals a season more,” Ferdinand added.

“This kid here, that’s all he wants to do, that’s an element of his game that doesn’t need working on. He’s scored goals at every level and he’s brought it into the first team.”

Chelsea, who had their transfer ban shortened last week and can add reinforcements in January as a result, are fourth in the Premier League and face Bournemouth, Tottenham, Southampton and Arsenal between now and then.