Ipswich Town: Kieran McKenna won’t believe Chelsea FC transfer situation - will he take action? | OneFootball

With Ipswich returning to the Premier League, their manager may wish to look again at a former player of his who's had a disastrous time in 2025-26.

Ipswich Town are preparing for a return to the Premier League following a season away, and manager Kieran McKenna may want to look again at one of his former players as he plots a summer of squad-strengthening.

In the end, Ipswich Town got over the line. A 3-0 win at Portman Road against Queens Park Rangers was enough to kick-start celebrations, with the team doing enough to fend off challenges from Millwall and Southampton to secure a quick return to the Premier League.

It didn't always look as though this would be the case. A tepid start to the season left Ipswich in the bottom half of the Championship table as late as the second half of October. But a strong run of form throughout the closing stages of the season, during which they lost just one of their final 15 matches, was enough to see them return to the top-flight.

But the end of the season doesn't mean an end to the amount of work that needs to be done at Portman Road. The 2024-25 season saw Ipswich finish 16 points short of Premier League safety, and there will be considerable work to be done on the first-team squad over the summer to make them more competitive, this time around.

And if they are looking to make attacking changes before the start of next season, manager Kieran McKenna could be tempted to look at one of his former players who's had a nightmare 2025-26 season following a big money transfer which hasn't worked out.

A contractual clause meant that Liam Delap's Ipswich stay was always likely to be brief

There's little doubting that striker Liam Delap could be a hit in the Premier League. Originally part of the Manchester City academy, he made six appearances in their first team, including two in the League itself, before being sold to Ipswich Town in the summer of 2024 for an undisclosed fee.

Delap was an immediate hit at Portman Road. He scored his first Premier League goal for them in his third appearance, and by the middle of November he'd scored six League goals for them, even though his team had only won one of their first 11 League games of the season.

A 1-1 draw against Manchester United dropped Ipswich into the bottom three, and they didn't emerge again, but Delap continued to score goals for them. By the end of the season, he'd netted for them 12 times in 37 Premier League appearances, one goal less than Jarrod Bowen and Luis Diaz, and one more than Antoine Semenyo or Brennan Johnson.

It was revealed early in April 2025 that Delap's stay at Portman Road was unlikely to be a long one. There was a £30 million release clause in his contract which would be triggered if relegated from the Premier League, and on the 26th of that month that relegation was confirmed. His sale to Chelsea for that figure was confirmed before May had even ended.

Kieran McKenna could offer Liam Delap an escape route from an increasingly chaotic looking Stamford Bridge

Less than a year on from Liam Delap's big money move to Stamford Bridge, it's clear that the transfer has been a flop. He's managed just two goals for them in nearly 40 appearances this season, and his match ratings are singularly unimpressive, with the player now having failed to score for Chelsea in any fixture since a 2-1 defeat at Fulham on the 7th January.

All of this raises the question of whether Delap will stay with Chelsea beyond the end of this season. Having already worked their way through Enzo Maresca and Liam Rosenior this season, and with under-21 coach Calum McFarlane currently in charge of the team, it's not currently known who their head coach will be for the end of the season, but the club's shaky financial position makes selling him a potentially attractive option as a certain percentage of his transfer fee could viably be recouped.

It has been reported that Delap intends to stay and fight for his place at Stamford Bridge for next season, but whether this is wise is very much an open question. Chelsea are a deeply dysfunctional club at present, with plans for protests against the owners before their FA Cup final appearance against Manchester City on the 16th May and deep uncertainty over their financial position as a result of their record-breaking losses.

Delap's former manager could provide a lifeline, here. A second promotion to the Premier League would give Ipswich Town the financial resources to be able to buy him back, and should Chelsea not want to sell him, a return on loan could alternatively be possible. Kieran McKenna may well look upon the dissatisfaction at Stamford Bridge as an opportunity to step in and offer the striker an opportunity to sit out the chaos there and get back to enjoying his football in an environment that feels a little less like a pressure cooker.

Now 23 years of age, Liam Delap is no longer a "young" footballer. He needs to find his place for the peak years of his career, and there's been little evidence that Stamford Bridge will be that place over the course of the 2025-26 season. Whether as a permanent move back to the club at which he made his name or as a temporary measure to rebuild some confidence and wait out what's going wrong under the current ownership at Chelsea, a return to Ipswich could be a shrewd move for a talented player at a very unhappy club.