Liam Delap was Chelsea’s first signing of the summer transfer window as the club moved quickly to address what was seen as a primary area of weakness last season, striker. João Pedro soon followed, with Nicolas Jackson hitting the old dusty trail on (at least for now).
But things have not gone quite as we might have imagined for Delap (JP’s doing fine, despite his recent goal drought). The former Manchester City prospect has just one goal in eleven appearances, no goals in any of his six starts, and
one pretty silly red card in a Cup match. In fact, the biggest impact he’s made so far was to get injured on the penultimate day of the transfer window, which caused a massive panic in the Chelsea offices, and a last-second recall for Marc Guiu (who’s been equally as ineffective).
Delap came back from injury (and suspension) at the start of last month, but unfortunately he’s now set to miss several more weeks after suffering a shoulder injury in our scoreless draw against Bournemouth last weekend. I suppose that’s relatively good news as the injury looked much more severe at the time, but according to The Telegraph, Delap avoided a dislocation and should be out “no longer than four weeks”.
So hopefully the 22-year-old can return at some point during the busy festive period. He may be very raw, but he’s not going to get polished sitting on the sidelines.
