Liam Delap Nottingham Forest is a sentence that would have sounded far-fetched two summers ago, and it now describes the most expensive footballer in the club’s history. The striker arrived from Chelsea on 27 August 2026 in a club-record deal reported at around £50m, took the No.19 shirt, and was on the pitch at Anfield 48 hours later. This is the guide to the centre-forward Oliver Glasner has built his front line around.
Who is Liam Delap?
Delap was born in Winchester in February 2003 and grew up around professional football in the most literal sense. His father is Rory Delap, the Republic of Ireland international who spent a decade in the Premier League and became, at Stoke City, the most famous thrower of a football in English history – a set-piece weapon rather than a set-piece delivery. That inheritance has already produced its first City Ground moment.
The son is a different kind of player. Delap came through the academy at Manchester City, where he scored on his senior debut in the League Cup as an 18-year-old and was, for a spell, the most talked-about young English forward at the club. What he could not get there was minutes, because the queue in front of him was the best in Europe.
So he went to find them. Loan spells in the Championship with Stoke City, Preston North End and Hull City gave him something closer to a striker’s education: a lot of games, a lot of physical contests, and long stretches without service. Plenty of academy forwards come back from that circuit diminished. Delap came back with a profile.
Ipswich, Chelsea, and the price going up
The move that changed everything was Ipswich Town in the summer of 2024, for a reported £20m. Ipswich were relegated, and Delap still scored 12 Premier League goals in a side that spent most of the campaign under siege. Goals in a struggling team are the hardest kind to score, and the top-flight clubs noticed.
Chelsea won that race in the summer of 2025, paying a reported £30m. Stamford Bridge is a crowded place to be a young centre-forward, though, and Delap’s first season in west London brought fewer starts than the fee implied. By August 2026 both club and player were open to a move – which is where Forest came in.
The Liam Delap Nottingham Forest transfer
Forest had spent the summer looking for a No.9. Taiwo Awoniyi was sold to Coventry City for £9m on 17 August, leaving Chris Wood, Igor Jesus and Arnaud Kalimuendo as the senior options, and interest in several targets came and went before the club moved decisively for Delap late in the window.
The deal, completed on 27 August, broke Forest’s transfer record. It was the fourth of five first-team arrivals in a window that saw the Reds spend roughly £101m – Xaver Schlager on a free from RB Leipzig, Ousmane Diomande from Sporting CP for a reported £34m, goalkeeper Steven Benda, Delap, and then Daniel Muñoz from Crystal Palace on 31 August. The window shut on 1 September with Glasner content, and characteristically dry about it.
“I said I must be the first manager who helped Mr Marinakis save money,” the head coach joked, in comments reported by the Nottingham Post. “We had one or two more targets but we couldn’t get the deals done for different reasons… then it just makes no sense adding another one who doesn’t have the same profile.”
Delap, plainly, had the profile.
How he plays
Delap is a running centre-forward. He is quick over distance rather than merely sharp in a phone box, he attacks the channels instinctively, and he will chase a lost cause into the corner on the reasonable assumption that the centre-half behind him would rather not deal with it.
Three things define the profile:
- Direct running. He is at his most dangerous when the ball goes early into space behind a defence, not when it arrives at his feet with his back to goal and three men around him.
- Pressing volume. He leads a defensive line from the front and does it for 90 minutes, which is non-negotiable in a Glasner side.
- Physical resilience. Three Championship loans and a relegation season taught him to play through contact and through quiet afternoons.
The area still to be settled is his finishing volume against organised, well-resourced defences. Twelve goals for Ipswich proved he can score in the Premier League. Doing it for a side with ambitions higher up the table is the leap Forest have paid for.
Where he fits under Glasner
Oliver Glasner, appointed on 6 July 2026, plays a 3-4-2-1 that puts one striker at the tip with two creators just behind. It is a demanding job: the lone forward has to occupy a back line on his own, hold possession when the team needs a breather, and lead the press. Glasner has built successful attacks around exactly this kind of forward before.
The competition is real. Chris Wood remains a fundamentally different and very effective option, Igor Jesus offers movement, and Kalimuendo stayed at the club after an encouraging pre-season. But the fee, the shirt and the timing all point one way, and Delap’s debut in the 2-2 draw at Liverpool on 29 August – a game in which Dan Ndoye and Morgan Gibbs-White scored – was his most persuasive argument yet.
There is a familiar face alongside him, too: James McAtee, another Manchester City academy product, and the pair’s understanding from age-group football is part of what Forest are banking on. The full picture is in our post-window best XI and the 2026/27 squad numbers guide.
England, and the target set for him
Delap has represented England at under-21 level and a senior call-up has been discussed for the best part of two years without arriving. Glasner has been explicit that he expects the move to Forest to change that, setting him the England squad as an objective shortly after the signing was completed. It is a reasonable framing: a club-record striker scoring regularly in the Premier League is close to the profile England have spent years looking for. Selection news is confirmed through the Football Association.
What comes next
Forest are still waiting for a first win of 2026/27 – two points from three games after the home defeat to Leeds United, the draw at Anfield and a goalless afternoon against Tottenham Hotspur on 5 September, in which Neco Williams had a goal disallowed by VAR for handball. The Reds travel to Aston Villa at Villa Park at 3pm on Saturday, once the September international break clears.
That is the fixture where the Liam Delap Nottingham Forest era can properly begin. A club record is a burden as much as a compliment, and City Ground crowds have a long memory for expensive strikers. But the pieces fit: a system that asks for precisely what he does best, a creator in Gibbs-White capable of finding his runs, and a fanbase that forgives a forward almost anything provided he keeps running. Records are tracked on the Premier League’s official site, with squad confirmations via the official Nottingham Forest website.
