How Chelsea won the race to sign £30m Delap

Champions League football, the opportunity to play alongside Cole Palmer, the Premier League’s youngest squad. Three of these factors contributed to Chelsea’s successful signing of Liam Delap.

Following Ipswich’s relegation from the Premier League, a £30m release clause was activated, which attracted strong interest from Manchester United, Everton, Nottingham Forest, and Newcastle.

After selling Delap for £20 million last summer, Manchester City decided against using it. However, they did so in a buy-back option.

Ipswich gave Delap permission to speak with a number of interested clubs earlier this month.

Manchester United and Chelsea were the obvious choice over the past week, but the Blues’ triumph over Nottingham Forest in the final game proved to be the decisive factor.

The 22-year-old was spotted at Stansted Airport that evening before a medical, and was informed of his decision a week prior to the release of the information to the parties involved.

Instead of competing for England in the European Under-21 Championship, he is likely to join his new club for the inaugural summer Club World Cup.

Delap has been Chelsea’s top target all season, and it is thought that co-owner Behdad Eghbali met with the player’s principal agent in Dubai. Before the Conference League final, Embahi even expressed his admiration for the player to Chelsea fans in Wroclaw.

Delap thinks Chelsea’s play style will work well for him and that they will fit the bill. Numerous former City Academy graduates who will work at Stamford Bridge, including Jadon Sancho, Romeo Lavia, Tosin Adarabioyo, and Palmer, urged him to make the move.

Delap and Maresca both shared a top development squad with City, while Chelsea’s top recruiter, Joe Shields, is also known to have a close relationship with the player and his family, and academy director Glenn van der Kraan is one of the two Premier League players with whom Maresca also has a strong relationship.

After being interviewed for the position of manager last summer, Ipswich boss Kieran McKenna also maintains good relations with the Chelsea hierarchy.

And he hopes that will lead to Marc Guiu’s potential move, who wants to take Delap on loan.

Manchester United can take a positive out of a negative in these circumstances, as they always do.

They believed that their pursuit of Delap was heading in the wrong direction, and it was Chelsea’s fault. They are now aware that they have failed.

The positive is that they can move on once the decision is made. That contrasts starkly with 2022, when Erik ten Hag made a month-long delay in a fruitless move to sign Frenkie de Jong and United panicked at the end of the transfer window and spent £150 million on Casemiro and Antony.

But that does not address the important issue: Who is it now?

Delap exemplified their ideal model of a developing, eager young player with scope to excel at a high standard, for a fixed fee.

Apart from the first one, Rasmus Hojlund, who is four days younger than Delap, also met the same requirements. Additionally, it hasn’t worked.

Nothing about United’s post-season trip to Asia has inspired me to believe they have the solution to their club’s goalscoring issues. It is quite the opposite, to put it simply.

Bryan Mbeumo of Brentford and Jean-Philippe Mateta of Crystal Palace are the “safe” but expensive choices. However, Mbeumo and Mateta are both 27 years old and will travel to Cameroon for a month to the Africa Cup of Nations.

Then there is a risk.

At the age of 34, Danny Welbeck, a former United striker, scored 10 goals in the Premier League. Is it worthwhile to reinstate Hojlund and relieve some of the pressure off him, or has Ruben Amorim come to the conclusion that the 22-year-old Danish international will never be good enough?

Delap also attracted interest from Newcastle, Nottingham Forest, and Everton.

Although it is believed that Everton and Moyes’ pitch had a positive impact on Delap, the club always accepted that they were underdogs.

Moyes remarked before the final game of the season against Ipswich at Goodison Park: “We would certainly be interested if he was interested in us.

Despite receiving a hostile reception following encounters with Jake O’Brien and Jarrad Branthwaite, Everton fans made their best effort to persuade Delap to play at the new Hill Dickinson Stadium following the game.

As he visited 37 Goodison Road, a home across the street from the stadium with a wall full of footballers’ signatures, supporters urged him to relocate to Merseyside.