Enzo Maresca has expressed his belief that Liam Delap could soon make the England squad, ahead of Chelsea’s Premier League match against Ipswich Town on Monday.
Maresca, who worked with Delap during his time at Manchester City, is familiar with the striker’s qualities. Chelsea has been linked with a January move for the 21-year-old, who has netted six Premier League goals this season.
“Liam is a fantastic player, and also for his age,” said Maresca. “I think we spent one year together and I think he scored 22, 24 goals and he is a very good striker.”
“In England they have many like him and they have many good players, good strikers and he’s working hard off the ball, on the ball, he understands the game and can score goals. And also because of his age, I think he can be an important player for England.”
Ahead of Chelsea’s match at Portman Road, Maresca hopes his team can recover from their first loss since October—a 2-1 defeat to Fulham on Boxing Day. “That’s very important, we want to try to prepare the game in a way to help us win the game,” Maresca added.
“We have a bad feeling about the last game that we lost against Fulham and hopefully we can come back with three points after this game. We never thought we were going to win every game, but now we’ve lost and they just said to me that we lost on August 18 (against Manchester City).
“And then, after two months (a second league defeat of the season against Liverpool), then another two months, and we know the reality is that you don’t lose a game every two months. Now it’s just a matter of how we react and we go again.”
