With Ipswich Town’s plucky relegation from the Premier League for the 2024/25 campaign, it was always going to be inevitable that star striker prospect Liam Delap would be moving on at the end of the season as given his performance levels in the top flight, he was never going to drop into the Championship tier.
Having joined the Portman Road outfit at the start of last season from Manchester City for a £15 million fee, Delap went on to make 32 league starts with eight additional showings coming from the substitutes bench across all competitions, and across those game he scored 12 times and provided two assists. With 12 Premier League yellow cards, he also demonstrated that despite his age he was not afraid to mix it up with centre halves who were often his senior.
Given the plaudits that he received for his efforts across the year, the transfer window speculation rumour mill had him linked with a move to a number of the top flight’s bigger clubs, but as we know Chelsea won out with a £30 million deal and he has already made his debut for them at the Club World Cup competition this summer.
With Chelsea’s spending and the significant squad bloat that they have, many in the wider world of football felt that it was a strange choice for a destination but clearly manager Enzo Maresca has given him a clear pathway and plan for the future, and a safe educated guess is he has been promised that he will be a regular starter at worst.
The England Under 21 international obviously has his sights set on higher though, and he admitted that joining back up with some familiar faces as well as the pull of European football was a key factor in them securing his signature. Cole Palmer was obviously one of the pulls given the time that they spent together as youth Academy graduates at Manchester City, and he confirmed that he bounced the idea off him.
One person he did not technically bounce the idea off was Maresca himself, despite the fact that they also know each other from their time at City as he was the Under 21 manager at the point, and he also denied that he believed in the potential ‘Number 9 curse’ at the club, being confident in his own abilities to make the move a success.
Naturally time will tell, but Delap has all the qualities necessary to make it as an even bigger success and people will certainly be watching on to see what happens next.