The first time most of us watched Liam Delap in action, we surely all came away quite impressed. It was December in the middle of last season, at Portman Road, and the young striker single-handedly grafted his way a Man of the Match performance in leading Ipswich Town to a 2-0 win against Chelsea. It would be their one and only league win at home all season.
Throughout that entire game, Delap tormented our defenders with his direct, powerful running and no-nonsense approach. He won and converted a penalty early on, then set up their second at the start of the second half. And he also collected a yellow card. That’s the football equivalent of the Gordie Howe hat-trick: one goal, one assist, one fight.
He would finish the season with 12 goals and 2 assists in 37 Premier League appearances; not exactly gaudy numbers but impressive enough to warrant plenty of transfer interest. He looked set to stay in the top flight even as Ipswich went down, and as it turned out, he would do said staying with us. Chelsea got the deal done quickly, activating the £30m release clause in his contract and signing him before the Club World Cup. He played in all but one of our seven games as we become (Club) World Champions, missing only the semifinal through yellow card accumulation. Did I mention he led the Premier League last season in yellow cards? One for each of his twelve goals.
So we certainly knew what we were getting.
For what it’s worth, and contrary to the narrative, he’s actually mellowed a bit, averaging one yellow per 400 or so minutes this season, rather than the 200 or so from last season. Unfortunately, the rest of his stats have dipped even more precipitously, with just two goals and four assists to his name (three of those assists coming in one half against second-division Hull City in the FA Cup). He’s had his chances, with 37 appearances across all competitions, including 11 starts in the Premier League.
Like many others, he’s of course on a very long contract — though by Chelsea standards, the 6-year deal he got, good through 2031, was actually relatively short. Also, relatively speaking, the investment in him is smaller than most. Still, I don’t imagine he would be a shining positive example of BlueCo’s playing-trading model, were we to try to cut our losses this summer.
Rumors to that effect have started to circulate, though according to The Telegraph, Delap “wants to stay and fight for his Chelsea career”, which certainly is commendable.
However, as the report points out, João Pedro is firmly entrenched as the first-choice at the moment (and rightly so), and we will likely have Nicolas Jackson coming back to us since Bayern Munich have no intention of activating their buy-option. And we’ve already agreed the signing of Emmanuel Emegha from sister-club RC Strasbourg. Plus there’s the forgotten man, Marc Guiu (whom we recalled on Transfer Deadline Day as emergency cover for Delap’s injury, but have ended up hardly using him), not to mention PL2 leading goalscorer Shim Mheuka in the Academy.
The report “understands” that Delap “still believes he can make his move a success” and he’s planning on putting in extra work over the summer to make that happen, but if someone were to indeed come knocking for him, I’d expect us to listen eagerly.