LIAM DELAP faces a defining five days for Chelsea despite having only just signed.
The £30 million striker scored his first goal for his new club and events elsewhere have put him in command in the battle for the centre forward spot.
Fifa’s decision to double the ban for position rival Nicolas Jackson means Delap will also lead the line against Benfica on Saturday as the Club World Cup starts to get interesting.
And in this form there is every chance Delap will have nailed it as first choice striker by the end of June and he may not look back.
Delap, 22, now has a goal and an assist, albeit against abject opposition in a tournament that even without the strength-sapping weather is a drain on the legs of the players.
Jackson is sitting it out and stewing on his shocking rush of blood and a decision to put his studs into the shin of an opposing player in the previous game.
A rash move from which he may not look back either.
While the vast majority of Chelsea fans back home in England slept, Delap was giving his new team the wake up call it has been craving for months.
Looking robust yet controlled with his old-fashioned approach to the game and rolled down socks, the Blues may at last have a centre forward they can count on week in, week out.
In addition to his first and Chelsea’s second goal at the end of a pedestrian half of football, Delap had a bullet header cleared off the line and only a last-ditch block prevented him from scoring earlier.
Channeling the aggression is what it’s about in the up front role going into combat. And Jackson is losing that.
He is currently banned in two separate competitions having been sent off in the Premier League at Newcastle last month for elbowing Sven Botman.
In what was a largely unimpressive performance from a massively reshuffled Chelsea against a terrible side, they are at least through to the last 16, with a headed goal by Tosin getting them off the mark.
The towering centre half latched onto an Enzo Fernadez free kick three minutes into first-half injury time.
Even though Chelsea needed only a draw to progress, taking the lead was a huge relief for a team with eight changes from the previous game – a 3-1 defeat to Brazilians Flamengo.
And Delap struck again just two minutes after Tosin to seal the win that sees Chelsea finish as Group D runners up and head to Miami this morning to set up camp before flying to Charlotte, North Carolina, to play Benfica on Saturday afternoon UK time as the knockout stage kicks in.
The added good news being they avoid a date with Harry Kane and Bayern Munich for now at least.
Head coach Enzo Maresca waited until there was no chance of a comeback by the opposition before rotating his team further – taking off Fernandez to hand a debut to midfielder Andrey Santos.
The Brazilian has been a Chelsea player for two and a half years, yet has been on loan at Nottingham Forest and sister club Strasbourg since.
Delap came off just before the hour to warm appreciation from local fans and the longer Chelsea stay in this tournament the more comfortable he looks in Jackson’s shoes.
Sub Tyrique George made it 3-0 five minutes into the seven of added time with a powerful shot that the Tunis keeper could not hold.
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