Micah Richards rates Liam Delap debut and tells Chelsea star to ‘up his game’

Micah Richards was impressed by Liam Delap’s Chelsea debut at the Club World Cup and believes Nicolas Jackson will have to ‘up his game’ despite ‘playing really well’ against Los Angeles FC.

The Blues got their campaign off to the perfect start with a comfortable 2-0 victory over their MLS opposition, with Pedro Neto and substitute Enzo Fernandez scoring either side of half-time in Atlanta.

Enzo Maresca decided to name summer signing Delap on the substitutes bench at the Mercedes-Benz Stadium, opting instead for Jackson up top, supported by Noni Madueke, Cole Palmer and Neto.

But the Europa Conference League winners rang the changes in the second period as Malo Gusto, Dario Essugo, Tyrique George, Christopher Nkunku, Fernandez and Delap were all introduced.

After a somewhat nervy start, Delap quickly grew into the contest and linked up brilliantly with Palmer before finding Fernandez with an exquisite cross to help Chelsea double their lead in the 79th minute.

Maresca’s men will look to leapfrog Flamengo at the top of Group D when they face the Brazilian outfit at Philadelphia’s Lincoln Financial Field on Friday.

‘I put a message in the [Rest Is Football] group saying, “Delap is struggling a little bit”, and then two minutes later he got the assist!’ Richards said on the latest Rest Is Football episode when analysing Chelsea’s display.

‘I thought Jackson was playing really well. Obviously, he’s going to have to up his game.

‘I’m always a big fan of Jackson, I think he could score more goals, obviously, but his whole link-up play was very, very good.

‘You want to see Delap come on and score. Being English, you want him to score, assist and just play well.

‘A couple of his early touches, I thought, “Oh… it looks a bit fast out there for him getting used to a new team”, and then he grew into the game.’

According to Richards, former Ipswich striker Delap – who joined Chelsea for a fee of £30million – looked more at ease as the clash with Los Angeles FC wore on.

The ex-Manchester City and England defender added: ‘After about five or ten minutes… his stature, he was going into pockets, getting the ball and then even when he went wide, the delivery on the cross was outstanding.

‘Enzo made a darting run into the box and I could see these combinations working really well next season.

‘It was an impressive debut in the end from Delap.’

In the immediate aftermath of Chelsea’s win, Maresca said he was ‘curious’ to see how Jackson would react to Delap’s promising debut showing.

‘Yes, very pleased,’ the Italian said of the competition between the two centre-forwards.

‘I am curious to see how Nico reacts. He competed with [Marc] Guiu who is very young during the season. They are both good No.9s.’

On Chelsea’s performance as a whole, Maresca added: ‘It was a very good result.

‘At this stage of the season it is also normal that you have to manage different kinds of things. Overall, the performance has been good.

‘We have to recover. We have a game in three days [against Flamengo in Philadelphia], so we will see. We are going to prepare in the best way and for sure try to win.

The good thing about Liam is he knows the way we want to play so the process is quite quick. Also we gave a chance to Dario Essugo which is another player we have, so it’s good for both of them.’

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