€58m sale would be Chelsea's best transfer deal in years

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Cameron Smith | Digital Content Producer

Accredited sports journalist covering football since 2020

Chelsea have less than three weeks to finalise their transfer business before Deadline Day on 1 September and it’s understood that Xabi Alonso’s side will prioritise player departures for the remainder of the window.

As per the club’s official website, Chelsea currently have 43 first-team players on their books and with no European football this season, that number must be seriously reduced before the window slams shut.

The likes of Trevoh Chalobah, Marc Cucurella and Andrey Santos have already been sold on permanent deals by the Chelsea hierarchy, while the west London giants have also prioritised loan moves for their talented crop of academy stars this summer - something they haven’t done during BlueCo’s reign to date.

Current ETV

Liam Delap

F (C), AM (R)

Chelsea

Liam Delap

F (C), AM (R)

Chelsea

€33.6M

ETV Range

€30.3M - €37M

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Chelsea are desperate to offload players such as Axel Disasi, Benoit Badiashile and David Datro Fofana over the next few weeks, and the club must also make a decision on Nicolas Jackson and Liam Delap.

The summer arrivals of Emmanuel Emegha and Danny Welbeck means that Alonso now has a plethora of strikers at his disposal, and both Jackson and Delap have been heavily linked with permanent summer exits.

The former has attracted substantial interest from Aston Villa, while the latter has been tentatively linked with a number of Premier League clubs in recent weeks, including Everton and Nottingham Forest.

Chelsea want a fee of €65m for Jackson, as per multiple reports, and The Evening Standard now report that Delap’s asking price has been set at a whopping €58m (£50m). If Chelsea are able to finalise a sale for that price, it would go down as one of their best pieces of transfer business in years.

Liam Delap to leave Chelsea?

When Chelsea finalised the signing of Delap last summer, after triggering the €35.5m release clause in his Ipswich Town contract, it was widely regarded as a major coup.

He arrived at Stamford Bridge having netted 12 goals in 37 Premier League games during his debut campaign at Portman Road, and he was undoubtedly one of the division’s standout strikers across the 2024-25 season.

Manchester United were also interested in agreeing a deal for the Englishman, but Chelsea won the race for his signature and he was seen as a possible heir to ex-Blues star Diego Costa.

His first season in west London couldn’t have gone much worse, though. Delap only scored twice in 1,601 minutes of action for the Blues in 2025-26, while he ended the season with seven yellow cards.

His debut campaign at the club was certainly hampered by outside factors, such as a hamstring injury he picked up against Fulham in August and a dislocated shoulder he suffered versus Bournemouth in December, but Delap didn’t help himself throughout the campaign either.

He was sent off against Wolverhampton Wanderers in the Carabao Cup in October, which former boss Enzo Maresca described as “very stupid” and “embarrassing”, while his shoulder injury was caused by a physical battle that he instigated with Bournemouth defender Marcos Senesi.

The former England U21 international often appeared more interested in fighting opposition centre-backs than getting into goalscoring positions last season, and he looked a shadow of the frightening attacker that caused so many problems for Ipswich.

So, the fact that Chelsea want to turn a sizeable profit on Delap, especially considering his Estimated Transfer Value (ETV) sits at just €33.6m, is both surprising and incredibly ambitious after his hugely underwhelming first season at Stamford Bridge.

In fact, in regards to value-for-money, selling Delap for €58m would arguably be Chelsea’s best piece of transfer business since the signing of Cole Palmer from Manchester City in 2023.