Liam Delap won’t have any problem as Chelsea number nine- Enzo Maresca | OneFootball

Chelsea may be about to kick off their Club World Cup campaign against Los Angeles FC, but the hot topic around the club is the arrival of Liam Delap and Enzo Maresca is confident he will be a success.

The Englishman signed for the Blues from Ipswich in a deal worth £30 million and scored 12 Premier League goals last season.

On whether Delap will feel the pressure of a shirt number which has previously haunted Chelsea strikers, Maresca said: “Liam knows well how important the number nine is for this club. Personally I don’t see any problem about that. I see Liam quite relaxed, easy. He’s done well since he arrived, he’s working well.

“We already know each other from years ago so I know what Liam can give us and he knows what we can give to him for him to improve and become a better player. Hopefully he can score goals for us.”

The 22-year-old won’t have a guaranteed starting spot in the new campaign and will have to battle against Nicolas Jackson. The Senegalese forward has been staking his claim as Chelsea’s main man for two years and will not give up his place easily.

Maresca also indicated that Delap will have to work for a starting place: “I never say to a player ‘you will be first choice’. The message is always the same. Arrive, work hard, work more than the other number nine, and then you will be first choice. So the conversation with Liam has been quite clear. He was keen to join us because he knows the way we play. In the season we were together we also won for the first time for Manchester City under 23’s. He scored 24 or 25 goals that season.”

The Italian has been talking up Delap for a long time, and even claimed he could be the next main England striker: “When we faced Ipswich, when he was not a Chelsea player, I said he can potentially be England’s number nine. For sure now that he is with us, I’m going to say again I don’t have any doubt that he can be in the future England’s number nine.”

This new signing, and hype, comes ahead of the Club World Cup which for Chelsea is about to begin, and Maresca was wary of the threat that LAFC could pose, especially if his side fail to prepare.

“The most difficult thing about the Conference League was trying to convince the players that every game for the other team was the game of the season, so if you don’t prepare in the right way, you can be in trouble. Tomorrow if we are not ready and prepared we could be in trouble.”