Gabriel Agbonlahor has questioned Liam Delap’s choice to join Chelsea during the summer transfer window. He insisted that the forward should have moved to another team first to ensure he would improve.
After Ipswich Town was relegated to the Championship, the striker moved to Stamford Bridge for £30 million. He chose the Blues over Manchester United and his old club, Manchester City, who were also interested.
Delap signed a six-year deal and played in Chelsea’s successful Club World Cup campaign, but his season has been hard because he hasn’t been able to stay fit and hasn’t been getting enough playing time. Agbonlahor thinks that joining Enzo Maresca’s star-studded team was a bad move for the 22-year-old at this point in his career because there are too many good players in West London.
Before Chelsea’s important London derby against Arsenal, the former Aston Villa striker told talkSPORT that he wasn’t sure about the transfer. Agbonlahor said that it would be hard to get playing time and suggested that a club with lower expectations would have been a better fit:
“I’m not sure about Liam Delap at the moment. I think he might have missed the trick of going to a lesser club before Chelsea, I don’t think he’s going to get the game-time in this Chelsea squad.”
The expert went on to say that Delap needed to take a step in between before joining a team that could compete in the Champions League:
“Could he have not gone to an Everton first, got 15-20 goals there and then made the jump to Chelsea?”
Chelsea manager unhappy with Delap’s discipline
Delap’s adjustment to the team has been difficult, especially after he returned from a two-month injury layoff to play against Wolverhampton Wanderers. The forward got two yellow cards in seven minutes, which got him sent off.
Manager Enzo Maresca was very unhappy with the player’s performance. The Italian coach made it clear that he wants his players to make better decisions after the dismissal and slammed Delap in a statement to reporters:
“Today we had a very stupid red card that was completely unnecessary. A stupid foul. He deserved that.”
The manager also said he had told the player to stay calm just before the incident. Chelsea are in third place in the Premier League table going into Sunday’s game. This is because Manchester City beat Leeds United 3-2 on Saturday. But if the Blues beat Arsenal, they could move back up to second place and close the gap on the league leaders.
