Liam Delap ‘future England No 9' says Maresca but not guaranteed to be first-choice at Chelsea
Enzo Maresca insists Liam Delap has not been given any assurances about being Chelsea's first-choice striker, but is backing him to become England's next great No 9.
Delap completed a £30million move to Chelsea from relegated Ipswich Town earlier this month and went straight into Maresca's squad for the FIFA Club World Cup in the United States.
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But the Italian would not confirm if Delap will make his Chelsea debut from the start in Monday's first group stage match against LAFC at Mercedes-Benz Stadium in Atlanta, and warned that the 22-year-old will have to compete with Nicolas Jackson for the No 9 spot in his strongest XI.
'I never say to a player you are going to be first choice,' Maresca said. 'The message is always the same: you arrive, you work hard, you work more than the other number nine and you can be first choice No 9. So the conversation with Liam was quite clear. He was keen to join us because he knows the way we play, the season that we were together (at City).
'We won for the first time for Manchester City the (Premier League) under-23 competition, and he scored 24, 25 goals that season. So he knows exactly what we can give to him, and as I said before, I know what Liam can give us. So I think it's a win-win and the conversation was quite an easy one. We like Liam, Liam likes us, so it was an easy conversation.'
On the subject of Delap's future England prospects, Maresca added: 'Before we faced Ipswich, (when) Liam was not a Chelsea player, I said that for me, potentially he can be England No 9. He was not even with us. And for sure now that he's with us, I'm going to say again that I don't have any doubt that he can be in the future England No 9.'
Despite his clear satisfaction at adding Delap to his attacking options, Maresca was also keen to stress that his Chelsea squad is short of a winger after the club opted against making Jadon Sancho's loan from Manchester United permanent and did not conclude a deal for Borussia Dortmund winger Jamie Gittens before the end of the brief pre-Club World Cup transfer window.
'Jadon is not with us, so for sure that is a position that probably we need to do something (in the market),' Maresca said. 'Also because as you already know, Misha (Mykhailo Mudryk) is not with us. So in this moment we have Noni (Madueke), Pedro (Neto) and Ty (Tyrique George) as proper wingers. So for sure something is going to happen.
'We said many times when the window of transfers is open, anything can happen to bring players or to sell players. But we'll see.'
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New York Times
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Yahoo
29 minutes ago
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