Liam Delap must be kicking himself.
The most recent Chelsea match, Liam Rosenior waiting until Everton were winning 3-0 and then finally bringing on the former Ipswich striker as his last allowed sub with only 12 minutes to go.
What might have been?
Liam Delap then sitting at home like the rest of us, watching England struggle up front in the friendlies against Uruguay and Japan. Solanke and Calvert-Lewin making the strongest possible cases for why they should NOT be going to this summer’s world cup finals.
Where did it all go wrong…?
Travel back just over ten months and Liam Delap had the world at his feet.
His breakthrough season as the 21 year old (turned 22 in February 2025) smashed it with Ipswich Town.
They looked doomed throughout but Liam Delap gave them some hope and most of the positives that Ipswich Town fans experienced in their Premier League season. They were relegated in 19th place and only scored 36 Premier League goals and Liam Delap scored exactly a third (12) of those. Add in his two assists and Delap was directly involved in a fraction under two-fifths of all their Premier League goals last season.
Long before the season ended, it was clear that Liam Delap would be leaving, especially as a clause in his contract meant his transfer fee would be £30m, clearly well below market value.
As last season was drawing to a close, it was revealed by the media that Liam Delap and his representatives were having talks with Newcastle United and a host of other Premier League clubs.
With Ipswich Town already relegated ahead of the season’s end, Ipswich boss Kieran McKenna admitted this was the case:
“Liam’s looking at his options for next year, which I think he is entitled to do and we support him with that, we have given him permission to do that this week. It’s a very important decision for his future. Of course there is a lot of interest and rightly so. I think part of his week has been having some of those conversations. It looks more likely than not that he will move on this summer and he has interest from pretty much every club in the league, I don’t think there are many clubs in the world who wouldn’t want to have him.”
With Callum Wilson leaving, Newcastle United needed to sign at least one striker (which turned out to be more than one needed…). Especially with European football guaranteed and the extra challenges that would bring, particularly with Champions League qualification looking all but certain.
Liam Delap decided to sign for Chelsea.
Apart from the higher wages they can pay compared to most, I honestly have no idea why Liam Delap and so many other promising young players, especially English ones, sign for Chelsea. It is quite obvious that the Chelsea owners simply see the stockpiling of young promising players as a money, not football, thing. Sign as many of them as possible, with a view to selling at a profit in the future, having usually sent them out on loan for the majority of their time as a ‘Chelsea’ player. Indeed, many of them end up never playing for Chelsea, or at best only a relative handful of times.
Chelsea simply looked at the £30m signing clause as a no-lose situation. Even if Liam Delap never played for them, they could sell him at a large profit 12 months later, maybe keep him a couple of years and then trade for an even bigger profit if he was successful, almost certainly at another club on loan rather than Chelsea themselves.
Liam Delap has only started 11 Chelsea matches across all four competitions this season, scoring two goals and getting zero assists.
Last season, Liam Delap started 32 Premier League games (off the bench in another five) for a really poor struggling Ipswich team, yet scored 12 goals and got two assists.
Nobody can convince me that if he had instead signed for Eddie Howe and Newcastle United, Liam Delap wouldn’t have at least matched last season’s goal threat.
I think that if Liam Delap had signed early last summer, every chance he would have ended up starting the season as first choice Newcastle United centre-forward and having had the whole pre-season to prepare, Eddie Howe would have had him as part of an exciting well drilled new look forward line. With the kind of supply line Alexander Isak enjoyed.
With Delap already signed, when the Isak thing blew up I reckon that instead of the daftness the Newcastle United owners insisted on when waiting until deadline day, before then still selling the Sweden international anyway. Eddie Howe could have convinced the owners to get the deal done on Isak and bring in another striker early to compete with and complement Liam Delap.
Instead, Delap now finds his club career totally stalled and just another young player that the Chelsea owners have ruthlessly taken advantage of, with no regard to his ambitions.
What about England?
Liam Delap had played through all the England age levels. Summer 2025 he was due to play for the England Under 21s at the 2025 European Championship finals. England looking to retain the title they had won in summer 2023, when Anthony Gordon was named player of the tournament after having played a key role (up front, through the middle!) as England Under 21s became European champions.
Having signed for Chelsea, his new club put a block on Liam Delap playing for England at the 2025 Under 21s European Championships. Instead, Delap had to go to the ridiculous waste of time (apart from the cash…) Club World Cup farce with Chelsea.
In his absence, England retained their Euros crown, whilst a certain Nick Woltemade won the golden boot as top scorer at the tournament, Germany losing to England in the final.
It has not only been a disaster at club level signing for Chelsea, Liam Delap had an open door to walk through in terms of going to the 2026 World Cup finals with Thomas Tuchel’s England.
Just look at how things have turned out this season for potential England centre-forward options.
You have 35 year old Danny Welbeck having made 30 Premier League appearances so far, scoring 12 goals and getting zero PL assists.
Then 29 year old Dominic Calvert-Lewin with 29 PL appearances, scoring 10 league goals and getting one assist.
Third best is 30 year old Ollie Watkins with 30 Premier League appearances, scoring nine goals and getting one assist.
The next highest English centre-forward appears to be Jaidon Anthony at Burnley with seven PL goals, although he is described as a winger and/or striker, so I am not even sure if he is an out and out striker.
Phil Foden was woeful when tried this past week as false number nine by Thomas Tuchel. Though he was in good company, as Calvert-Lewin was so poor and Solanke (injury problems this season and only three Premier League goals) the same.
The veteran Welbeck wasn’t called up by Tuchel, Solanke and Calvert-Lewin are clearly not good enough, Watkins appears to be not foremost in Tuchel’s thinking, if at all. So England have Harry Kane to take to the world cup finals and…
I think that Tuchel clearly sees Anthony Gordon as his first choice on the left but with the lack of other options through the middle, I struggle to see beyond the Newcastle United star, if England need somebody through the middle this summer and Harry Kane isn’t on the pitch.
Eddie Howe the serial England star maker
Amongst Eddie Howe’s many successes, the job he has done in getting so much from Jacob Murphy has been remarkable. The same in that 2022/23 season when the Newcastle boss had Joe Willock and Sean Longstaff as key first choice players in the team that got fourth place and to a Wembley final.
Eddie Howe has signed Hall, Gordon, Livramento and Burn, developing them as England players.
Eddie Howe also the key man as the likes of Ramsdale, Barnes, Wilson, Trippier and Pope have also extended their England careers in various ways. I think we will also see Jacob Ramsey find his way back into the England squad, though not in time for this summer.
With the promise and raw talent that Liam Delap showed for a poor Ipswich side, nobody can tell me that Eddie Howe wouldn’t have developed the striker into an even better player and bigger goal threat this season. Liam Delap then a certainty to be on the plane this summer AND almost certainly the main understudy to Harry Kane.
Liam Delap has a big decision to make this summer and more fool him if he remains a Chelsea player.
Harry Kane turns 35 in summer 2028 and the door is wide open for a new England striker to become first choice by then and have Kane as the super sub.
Liam Delap can’t afford another wasted year in club football and if for example, Eddie Howe and Newcastle United come calling again, he would be an even bigger fool this time if he doesn’t grasp the chance with both hands.