The Liam Delap Nottingham Forest transfer has moved from speculation to something close to substance. The Guardian’s Ben Fisher reported on Monday night that Forest are in advanced talks with Chelsea over a deal for Liam Delap, with Oliver Glasner wanting two more signings before the window closes a week on Tuesday.
For the first time in this saga, a named reporter at a national title has put Forest and Delap in the same sentence with a stage of negotiation attached. Everything before Monday night was a race, an enquiry or a pair of half-written headlines pointing vaguely at one another. “Advanced talks” is a different category of claim, and it lands with the Reds a week from deadline day and still without a settled centre-forward.
What this piece covers:
- What the Guardian actually reports about the state of the Delap talks
- Glasner’s own words on Forest’s remaining business — and the second position he wants filled
- Why Delap has been training away from Chelsea’s first team
- How this squares with the reported £70m bid for Igor Thiago
- What could still stop the deal before the window shuts
Background: the No 9-shaped hole at the City Ground
Forest arrived at this window with money and a plan, and have spent the summer proving the plan mattered more. Elliot Anderson’s £116m sale to Manchester City on 2 July was the biggest cheque in the club’s history, banked by a side that had just finished 16th while burning through four head coaches — Nuno Espírito Santo, Ange Postecoglou, Sean Dyche and Vítor Pereira all came and went inside one chaotic campaign.
What followed was restraint rather than a spree. Glasner arrived from Crystal Palace in early July and the recruitment since has been narrow: Ousmane Diomande from Sporting, Xaver Schlager on a free from RB Leipzig and goalkeeper Steven Benda on a free from Fulham. As the Guardian notes, Forest have paid a fee for only one of the three — the £34m for Diomande.
The forward line, meanwhile, got thinner. Taiwo Awoniyi’s move to Coventry City was completed on 17 August and nothing has come in to replace him. Chris Wood remains the most reliable finisher at the club and turns 35 this season. Arnaud Kalimuendo and Igor Jesus are both on the books without either having yet convinced anyone he can shoulder a Premier League campaign alone. Dan Ndoye, Callum Hudson-Odoi and Omari Hutchinson are wide forwards, not No 9s.
Then came opening day. Leeds United won 1-0 at the City Ground through an Anton Stach free-kick and Forest did not score. A squad built through the spine rather than the tip of the team looked exactly like one.
What the Guardian reports — and what it means
“Advanced talks”, and a player already on the outside
The detail that gives this report its weight is not the phrase “advanced talks” but what surrounds it. Delap, the Guardian reports, is out of favour at Stamford Bridge and has been training away from Xabi Alonso’s first team. He was left out of Chelsea’s squad altogether for Monday’s game at Fulham.
That is the pattern of a player being prepared for an exit rather than one discussed in the abstract. A 23-year-old striker training apart from the group in the final week of a window is, in practical terms, already on the market — and Chelsea are not selling from strength.
There is a symmetry to it, too. The Guardian points out that Delap was on Forest’s radar when he chose to join Chelsea from Ipswich Town. Forest wanted him then and, by this account, want him now — only with his bargaining position considerably weaker.
On the shape of the deal, the beat is not yet aligned. The Telegraph reported on Monday evening that the discussions concern a loan, while TEAMtalk framed it as Forest beating Everton and Newcastle to a £40m forward. ESPN, The Times and the New York Times all reported talks without settling the structure. None of that is confirmed and no fee has been reported as agreed, so treat the numbers as claims rather than facts — the reporting consensus is on the direction of travel, not the price.
Glasner on record: “two more high-quality players”
The most valuable line comes from the manager himself. “The club is working very hard to get these deals done,” Glasner said. “I’m very confident that we will get in two more high-quality players.”
That is consistent with everything the Austrian has said since the Diomande deal landed, and consistent with what he told BBC Radio Nottingham on Monday, when he insisted the Leeds defeat “doesn’t affect our strategic planning”. A manager who says he is confident of two more signings, on the same day his club is reported to be in advanced talks for one of them, is not managing expectations downwards.
The second position: wing-back
The Guardian adds a detail that has been underplayed elsewhere. Glasner has implemented a three-man defence at Forest and is also keen to strengthen at wing-back — which tells you where the other of those two signings is likely to go.
It fits the shape. A back three asks its wing-backs to cover the entire flank, and Forest are leaning on Neco Williams, Ola Aina, Nicolò Savona and Luca Netz to do it across a 38-game season with an EFL Cup run attached. Depth there is not a luxury in that system; it is the system working.
The Igor Thiago question
The obvious complication is that Forest have been reported chasing another striker entirely. ESPN reported on Sunday that the Reds had lodged a £70m bid for Brentford’s Igor Thiago. Two forwards at that level in one window would be extraordinary even for a club that has just sold a midfielder for £116m.
The likelier reading is that these are alternatives, not a double swoop. A frozen-out Chelsea forward available on a loan or a mid-range fee is a materially cheaper route to the same problem than a £70m bid Brentford are under no pressure to accept. If Delap is genuinely in advanced talks, Thiago looks like the plan Forest have moved on from rather than the one they are running in parallel.
The case for caution
Four things could still stop this. The first is that “advanced talks” is not a signature. Deals at this stage collapse over fee structure, wages and add-ons every deadline week, and neither club has said anything publicly.
The second is the loan-or-permanent split in the reporting. Those are very different outcomes for Forest — a loan solves this season and nothing beyond it, and it would sit oddly with a recruitment strategy that has otherwise been about buying assets in their early twenties with the Anderson money.
The third is competition. Everton and Newcastle were both named in Monday’s reporting, and Leeds days earlier. A player training on his own with a week to go attracts calls.
The fourth is the noise of late August. Forest have been linked in the past ten days with Marc Casado, Thiago, a Fiorentina full-back and assorted unwanted Serie A squad players, and most such links amount to nothing. What separates Delap is the quality of the sourcing and a manager on the record about the intent, if not the individual.
What happens next: Leeds, Liverpool and deadline day
The football does not pause for any of this. Forest host Leeds again on Tuesday in the second round of the EFL Cup, a rematch of Saturday’s defeat arriving three days later, and they do it without their captain: Morgan Gibbs-White misses the tie with a knee problem, though the Guardian reports Forest hope he will be available for Saturday’s trip to Liverpool.
That sequence matters to the transfer story as much as the table. A rotated side without Gibbs-White against opponents who have just beaten you, followed by Anfield, is the clearest audit of how deep this squad runs — and it happens before the window shuts.
Three markers will tell you whether the Delap deal is real. One: any confirmation of the structure, because loan and permanent are not the same story. Two: Chelsea continuing to leave him out of matchday squads. Three: the wing-back. If Forest move on a defender at the same time, Glasner’s “two more high-quality players” is a plan being executed rather than a hope being expressed.
The verdict
The Liam Delap Nottingham Forest transfer is now the most credible piece of business the Reds have going. A national title reporting advanced talks, a player training away from his club’s first team and left out of its squad, and a head coach publicly confident of two more arrivals is about as much alignment as you get before an announcement. It is still not a signing. But Forest need a centre-forward, Chelsea have one they are not using, and there is a week left to make the maths work.
We will track every development through to deadline day — follow the beat at nottinghamforest.football.
