Liam Delap: The Next Great England No.9?

The search for England’s next great No.9 has been running for years. For a while, Liam Delap looked like the obvious answer.

Breaking out of Manchester City’s academy and bullying defenders during a loan spell with Ipswich in the Premier League, Delap was talked about as the natural heir to Harry Kane. Strong, direct, ruthless in the box – the comparisons came quickly, and they stuck.

Then came Chelsea. Then came the stall.

A £30 million move to Stamford Bridge was supposed to launch him into the elite. On paper, he leaves with a FIFA Club World Cup winner’s medal. In reality, his time in west London dulled his shine: just three goals in 47 appearances in all competitions, a stop-start rhythm, injuries, and a constant fight for rhythm and relevance in a squad that never quite felt built around him.

His reputation took a hit. His potential didn’t.

Nottingham Forest were convinced enough to tear up their own records. They paid £50m in the summer of 2026 to make Delap the most expensive signing in the club’s history, a statement that cut through all the doubts. Forest weren’t buying a highlight reel; they were buying a centre-forward they believe can be the focal point of their future.

Early signs suggest they might be right. Delap is already off the mark for the Reds and has carried a restless energy into his first outings at the City Ground. He looks like a striker desperate to prove a point – to Chelsea, to England, to himself.

Regular minutes should do the rest. Strikers live off rhythm and trust. Give them games, give them backing, and the goals tend to follow. Forest can offer exactly that, and Delap knows this move is about more than club form. It is his route back into the conversation he once dominated: who comes after Kane?

England are still waiting for that answer. Kane, now 33 and still scoring relentlessly, has smashed every national team scoring record in sight. Eighty-five goals for his country and counting, with three figures in range and international centurion status looming. He is also just four caps short of Peter Shilton’s all-time appearance record. His shadow stretches across a generation.

Behind him, the queue is shorter than you might expect. There is no obvious, ready-made successor. Delap is one of the names in the frame. So is 17-year-old Aston Villa prodigy Brian Madjo, another teenager being talked up as a possible future leader of the line. But right now, they are chasing a giant.

Former England striker Bobby Zamora, speaking to GOAL in association with BetWright Premier League betting, did not sugar-coat the scale of the task. Asked who he sees inheriting Kane’s No.9 shirt, he said: “I really don't know. Harry Kane is extremely, extremely special. There aren't many of him and to try and fill his boots, is firstly going to be a very, very tall task. I don't know who that person is that's going to come in.”

Pressed on Delap specifically, Zamora admitted the intrigue is still there. “Potentially Dalap. I'm interested to see how he takes the knock of the Chelsea situation. I actually thought he was going to be something really special. He's taken a little bit of a knock and I'm interested to see how he copes with that from the trajectory that he was on, aiming for the stars, taking a blip with injuries and inconsistencies and not as many goals as he probably would have liked at Chelsea. But yeah, he's potentially one.

“I think he needs to fit into the right sort of team. He has to fit into the right sort of team, but Harry's a very hard one to follow.”

That “right sort of team” may well be Forest. At the City Ground, Delap is not a rotation option or a developmental project. He is the record signing, the man expected to carry the attack, the striker around whom a system can be built rather than one asked to squeeze into a structure that doesn’t suit him.

If the goals start to flow on the banks of the Trent, the conversation will shift quickly. Twelve caps at U21 level show that England have long had him on the radar. Sustained form in the Premier League would push him towards a first senior call-up, especially in a landscape where the post-Kane plan remains unwritten.

Kane will eventually walk away, leaving behind a record that might stand for generations and a void that cannot simply be “filled”. Someone will still have to wear that shirt. Delap is fighting to make sure that, when that moment comes, his name is impossible to ignore.