- 3 hours ago
Chelsea have begun their Club World Cup with a 2-0 win over LAFC, with their big summer signing (so far) Liam Delap making his debut from the bench. With the game in the balance, he quickly set up the second goal, and immediately showed why Enzo Maresca had made him a priority addition to the squad.Adam Clery examines his 2nd half cameo, as well as his performances last season, to show why he's going to be so important to Chelsea this coming season.
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00:00Right, hello there everybody, welcome back to ACFC and that was a really rough 17 days but don't worry, we've
00:07all survived it.
00:09Club football has returned in the quite glamorous shape of the Club World Cup.
00:14Now I know, I know there's a lot of discourse about it at the minute, what with the tiredness and
00:19the attendances and whatever the hell this was supposed to be.
00:22But just, let's not forget guys, this is the very same competition where Man United got absolutely humiliated by a
00:31Brazilian centre forward who was, at the time, in quite serious hot water with a number of animal welfare groups
00:38because he'd allegedly gone and got a chimpanzee, mortal drunk at a child's birthday party.
00:44So I don't want to hear that it hasn't got history, I don't want to hear that it hasn't got
00:48pedigree.
00:49Ange Postacoglu was once rocking his best ever shagga stepdad look, managing in the thing.
00:55So one way or another, the Club World Cup always tends to be absolutely mad and tell me that based
01:03on what you've seen so far, that's not currently how it feels.
01:07So I'm locked in.
01:08But anyway, yes, Chelsea, the thing you actually clicked on, they started their pursuit of whatever this is supposed to
01:15be with a debatably comfortable 2-0 win over Los Angeles.
01:19FC and making his debut off the bench in that match was Liam DeLapp.
01:23Now, because I had the audacity to take a holiday when he signed for Chelsea in the first place, I've
01:27not actually yet done a Liam DeLapp video.
01:30And I thought in that small cameo, you saw precisely what it is he does and precisely why Enzo Moresco
01:37wants a bit of that for Chelsea.
01:40And there's nothing else on.
01:42So.
01:46All right, now, so before we begin, please allow me to welcome the channel's first ever big sponsors, DAZONE, as
01:55well as being the official broadcast partners of the Club World Cup.
01:58They're our official broadcast overlords for while we're covering the Club World Cup.
02:05And just to put your mind at ease, because I know people hear the word sponsorship and they're worried that
02:09stuff's going to change.
02:11Like, it's going to be so incredibly subtle.
02:14These guys have a total feather touch.
02:16You will barely even notice it.
02:19Anyway.
02:27What?
02:29Right.
02:30So, yes, this was the Chelsea XI that started the game against LAFC.
02:33I think we're all a little bit surprised, given that, like, Jackson and Palmer and loads of them had been
02:38playing, like, less than seven days ago, how strong it was.
02:41But, regardless, this was the team.
02:43But in the somethingth minute that I forgot to make a note of before I started recording, 62nd, 63rd, I'll
02:50check that in a little bit, Liam Dillard makes his debut off the bench.
02:53And in doing so, creates the goal that sealed the game.
02:57Now, I'm going to break down exactly what it is he does in that goal.
03:01Because while it's an assist, and you just assume that you buy centre-forwards to score, not to make goals,
03:07what he does here is actually such a good example of who he is as a player.
03:11But before we get to that bit, Chelsea's 4-2-3-1 was actually, of course, not a 4-2
03:16-3-1, because it had special mission Mark Cucurea.
03:20He is my absolute favourite inverted defender, because he does not invert into the middle like a nerd would, but
03:26he inverts all the way into the attacking line.
03:29And the defence kind of steps across in behind him, and he plays this sort of, like, left-back, left
03:34-wing, 8-slash-10 role.
03:37And he's getting to maybe be the best in the world at it.
03:40And one thing I did personally really enjoy about this game was that the camera angle in the stadium was
03:45so high that when Chelsea did get into this 3-2-5 shape,
03:49there were occasions where you could see the whole thing from back to front in one shot on telly.
03:55And I know exactly, exactly what you're thinking.
03:58You wouldn't be the first person to say it.
04:00And the answer is, probably.
04:02But no, I've never actually had it diagnosed.
04:05Anyway, though, yes, so, DeLapp.
04:07Nicholas Jackson, to me, looked very much like a player who, for the first time in two years, does feel
04:12like his place is under threat.
04:15Was doing a lot of work off the ball.
04:17Was dropping into positions you very rarely see him drop into.
04:20But as a result, felt like he struggled to impose the Nicholas Jackson game on this game.
04:26And the reason he'd have been trying to show, so willing to run into these spaces and get onto the
04:31ball, is because when Liam DeLapp came on, it showed you exactly how that's done.
04:36Chelsea have the ball down the right with Palmer and Neto.
04:39And you can see, this is not a particularly structured attack.
04:44You wouldn't say there's any sort of real shape to it.
04:47It's a lot more transitional.
04:48They very recently just gone and got the ball back, so it's all a bit disorganised.
04:51But regardless, LA are pretty well set.
04:54They've got both their defensive line here and their midfield line here back in their own half.
04:59Neither of them are sort of the wrong side of the ball.
05:02And now normally, Nicholas Jackson is brilliant in these situations because he runs in nice straight lines.
05:08He would normally keep this run going directly towards goal and either peel off for Palmer to try and clip
05:14it over to the back post, which is obviously very tricky, but it's not impossible.
05:18Or end up running himself offside, but in the process, create even more room in this space between the lines
05:25as the defender initially, before letting him go, goes with him.
05:29Those are pretty much the two things off the ball he's really good at.
05:32But the thing is, this being a transition, they haven't really got the support to benefit from any of that.
05:38So DeLapp, who's in the team at this point, does something I don't think I've seen Nicholas Jackson ever do.
05:44Seeing Neto wants to come infield into this space, he spins out into the channel.
05:50He's still making a run in behind, which is what Jackson would have done, but DeLapp's not doing it into
05:56a goal scoring position.
05:57He's just doing it into empty space.
05:59And the impact of him doing that is it turns LA's defensive line here, which is the shape this is
06:05supposed to be, into a defensive, like backwards Z, if there's a word for that.
06:12What do you call it backwards Z? An S! Ah, you see!
06:17And that has now, as a result, created these two pockets of space in the box, which didn't previously exist.
06:25And better yet, Chelsea also have a player completely unpressurised on the ball in the final third.
06:31Like, just from this position here, where nothing is on, to this situation here, where several things could be because
06:39of his selection of run.
06:42You've got a pocket of space at the near post that Neto could conceivably get into and receive the ball.
06:46And this much juicier pocket at the back that's, ah yes, there's Enzo Fernandes now steaming into.
06:53The ball in is absolutely perfect. The finish is really good. 2-0. Game pretty much done.
06:58Welcome to the Liam DeLapp show.
07:00Nicholas Jackson got a grand total of five assists for Chelsea last season.
07:04And literally only, like, I think two since October.
07:08And pretty much all of them would, like, this.
07:12Counterattacking situation. Him down the very centre of the goal.
07:15Player breaks slightly ahead of him.
07:17And he can play it forward.
07:19Like, I think he is really, really good in those straight line situations.
07:23But straight line situations tend to be the easiest to defend.
07:27So, you need to mix that up.
07:29But DeLapp, on the other hand, literally you can just see in this one clip, is a completely different player.
07:33Like, if we look at Nicholas Jackson's seasonal heat map from last season,
07:38you will see it's so heavily concentrated down the centre of the pitch.
07:43Which, yes, fair enough, he is a centre forward.
07:45But like we said, you've got to be able to mix stuff up.
07:47And he so rarely does.
07:49But while Jackson is making all these straight line runs down the middle,
07:52you look at DeLapp's instead, and you can see, yeah, still, there's absolutely box presence here.
07:58Knows where he's supposed to go to finish off the chances.
08:00But look at the concentration in this exact channel here.
08:05Like, given how much Ipswich was struggling to make any kind of chances last season,
08:08he had to spend so much of his time pulling off into these areas to try and create a little
08:13bit of space
08:14to somehow make something happen.
08:16But he is really good specifically at doing that.
08:19Like, it's absolutely not a coincidence that the first contribution he makes in a Chelsea shirt
08:23comes from this exact area of the pitch, having spun out around a defender to get on the ball.
08:30Like, he literally did his Ipswich job in that game, and Chelsea have immediately benefited from it.
08:36So is that it, Adam? Is that what he does?
08:37You spend all that money and he just makes these, like, spin-off runs into the channels?
08:42No, no, no, no, no.
08:43No, not always.
08:44There are other things he does which are really good.
08:47It's a very similar attacking situation for Chelsea.
08:49Most of the same players coming down the same side of the pitch, but he quite rigidly, this time, stays
08:55right in the middle.
08:56He instead has to use what people refer to as his gravity, which is just the very existential dread
09:02your presence alone creates in defenders, and how that then sort of sucks them a few yards closer towards you
09:08because they're worried about what you might do.
09:10And then, obviously, you get the idea if they're moving a few yards closer to you,
09:13it means they're moving a few yards further away from somebody else, and that might give them a bit more
09:18space.
09:18And DeLapp does that, or has that, way more than Jackson does.
09:23So you can see, as they enter the final third, this is his marker, and yeah, he's in the right
09:27spot,
09:27but you'd definitely say the other centre-back is too close to him.
09:32He's left this little gap here, meaning a pass into Neto would give him more room in behind this defender
09:38to play with.
09:38And then, even if you look at the very bottom of the screen there, the right-back,
09:41I think he's probably a little bit too close as well.
09:43So if this ball comes sailing over the top for a run from Tyrek George, he is almost certainly going
09:49to get caught under it.
09:51And as much of an intangible as that is, it's very hard to quantify how much gravity you have.
09:56That's a big part of the player Liam DeLapp is.
09:59We do not know yet what kind of a prolific goal scorer he is,
10:03because Ipswich was so bad at creating any kind of chances last season.
10:07We simply don't know what happens if you put him in a team where stuff's getting laid onto him.
10:12But what we do know is that he makes these runs excellently,
10:15and he makes loads of space for his teammates, either through those or just by being scary.
10:20And I don't want to gloss over his shooting numbers from last season,
10:23because if we do look at it, they are slightly concerning.
10:26Like, the shot volume is not high, because obviously Ipswich aren't creating very much for him.
10:31But even of the chances he was getting, the clinicity, the accuracy,
10:35like how much he was maximising those was still pretty low.
10:38Now, I personally think that's because he was largely getting quite low quality chances.
10:44I very rarely remember Ipswich gifting him anything.
10:47So I don't massively think these are all his fault,
10:50but this is something he's going to have to improve upon.
10:53He may do it very easily, he may not.
10:55But what should really encourage you if you're a Chelsea fan are these numbers,
10:58which really do stand out.
11:00Like, given just how little of the ball Ipswich was seeing in attacking areas,
11:04that he was one of the highest rated forwards in Europe.
11:07These aren't just the Premier League, these are all of the top five leagues in Europe
11:11for taking on opponents, beating them, running into the penalty area, running into the final third.
11:16Like, that is pretty extraordinary.
11:18And you can see why he's so good at that in this game,
11:21because there's this great moment right after he comes on,
11:23where he executes the lesser spotted triple bluff on an opponent.
11:28Chelsea have got the ball deep, and he feigns to go in behind,
11:31which obviously the defenders will know that he likes to do.
11:34But then he goes, no, actually, mate, just kidding, I want it short so I can get to it and
11:38take you on.
11:38So the defender, oh, no, panics, he's going to go the other way.
11:42Scrambles to recover, and in the ensuing scramble, he goes,
11:46nah, psych, I actually did want it in behind all along, and gets in behind.
11:51And I know you're the clever sort, so if you saw those take-on numbers,
11:54you were thinking, hang on, big, barely strapping centre-forwards.
11:57He's got some of the highest, like, take-on and take-on success percentages of the forwards in Europe.
12:03Isn't that the kind of stat you associate with a more, like, sort of dainty technical player?
12:08What's he doing with those numbers?
12:10And it's pretty simple, actually.
12:12Like, Liam DeLapp gets past players very easily,
12:14because he's a f***ing tank.
12:17He gets past you, largely because you just bounce off him,
12:20and then his technique is too good for you to get back and recover.
12:24And Opta, and you're going to like this, put this graph out when he was getting linked to Chelsea, right?
12:28And it's every single attempted, like, dually hard with another player across the course of the season.
12:37There's 418 of these making it the most of any forward in the Premier League.
12:43He was the most combative attacking player in the division.
12:47Now, a quick note of caution about this.
12:49His win percentage for them is actually strangely low.
12:53Like, it's only 38% of these he wins.
12:56He loses way more than he wins.
12:58But again, you saw in the LA game why that is.
13:02Like, his first contribution in a Chelsea shirt was to lose the ball,
13:07which, okay, fair enough, can happen.
13:08Guy came from the other side, maybe didn't see him.
13:10But then he goes charging into somebody else and just shoves him over
13:14when he's got no real chance of getting the ball back.
13:18Like, the 38% number here is not because he's bad at them.
13:22It's because he constantly selects them badly.
13:26I would say Liam DeLapp wins every single duel he can possibly win.
13:31The problem is he just has twice as many that he's got no right to be going in for.
13:36This is the thing.
13:37If you're in Zemorescu, you work really hard, in my opinion, on developing.
13:41Because if you can just sort of, like, curb that instinct he's got to fight everybody
13:46and have him pick and choose who he's battling with,
13:50you might have Drogba.
13:52In a way.
13:53Sort of.
13:54But yes, that is how I would explain the very concept of Liam DeLapp
13:58using Chelsea to LAFC 0 in their first game of the Club World Cup.
14:03Which, you know, I think if Chelsea were playing a slightly better team there,
14:09there was little moments like this.
14:11There was little moments like this.
14:12I think that Flamengo game could be pretty tasty.
14:18And of course, while I am contractually obligated to remind you
14:22that today's video was sponsored by our very good friends at DAZN
14:26and that you can watch every single game of the Club World Cup for free
14:29by signing up to DAZN in the link in the description,
14:32I'd just like to point out, I would tell you to do that anyway.
14:37Because this is the Club World Cup and something mad's going to happen.
14:41Lads, there was three red cards in the Boca Juniors Benfica game last night.
14:45We've already had a 10-0.
14:47If attendances keep going the way they're going,
14:49they might start walking all the fans out individually instead of just the players.
14:53You think I'm missing any of that?
14:54And of course, if you are in the mood to be clicking things while you're on the video,
14:58then the subscribe button is right there.
15:00And I don't know if any of you picked up on this,
15:02but I did just hit the old 100,000 subscribers mark on the channel,
15:07which is quite nice given we're like 10 weeks into it, etc.
15:11So thank you very much.
15:12If you've already done that, you can congratulate me.
15:15Why the hell not?
15:16At Adam Cleary, C-L-E-R-Y on all the various different socials.
15:19And if you are a Chelsea fan, your job in the comments,
15:22is Liam DeLapp your first choice centre-forward or is he merely depth of squad?
15:27Are you still a Jackson guy at heart?
15:30Like Tito.
15:33I think that's what, is that what one of them was called?
15:35I can't remember.
15:36That's the worst joke I'll ever do.
15:37So I'm going to say goodbye there.
15:39Goodbye, goodbye, goodbye.
15:41Goodbye.
15:42Goodbye.
15:42Goodbye.
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