The Rise of Delap: England's Next No.9?

The search for England’s next No.9 has been running for years in the background, a low hum behind Harry Kane’s relentless goal-scoring. For a while, one name seemed to rise above the rest.

Delap.

The powerful striker burst out of Manchester City’s academy and onto the Premier League scene at Ipswich with the kind of presence that makes defenders uneasy and pundits excited. He looked like the natural heir to “King Kane” – a penalty-box bully with a ruthless streak and the physical tools to dominate at the top level.

Chelsea certainly thought so. They paid £30 million for him, a statement fee for a forward they believed would grow into a leading man at Stamford Bridge. On paper, he collected a FIFA Club World Cup winner’s medal. On the pitch, the story never quite caught fire.

Three goals. Forty-seven appearances. A career that had been “aiming for the stars,” as one former England striker put it, suddenly stalled.

The move to west London hit his stock hard. Minutes were scarce, confidence dipped, and injuries and inconsistency dragged at his momentum. For a player tipped to be Kane’s eventual successor, the numbers looked unforgiving and the questions started to pile up.

Not everyone walked away.

Nottingham Forest stepped in during the summer of 2026 and pushed all their chips to the middle of the table. They made Delap their record signing at £50m, a bold, unapologetic bet on talent and potential rather than recent output. For a forward who needed belief as much as service, it felt like a lifeline.

Early signs suggest he’s grabbing it.

Delap is already off the mark for Forest, leading the line with the kind of aggression and energy that first put him on the map. At the City Ground he is playing, starting, and trusted. For any striker, that cocktail of rhythm, responsibility, and backing from the dugout can be transformative.

Give a goalscorer games, and you give him a chance to remember who he is.

If the goals start to flow on the banks of the Trent, the conversation around Delap will shift again – this time towards St. George’s Park and Gareth Southgate’s successor. He has 12 caps at U21 level, a reminder that the England setup already knows him well. The senior door is not locked; it just demands evidence.

And England need that evidence.

Kane, at 33 and still evergreen, continues to churn out numbers that belong in a different era. Eighty-five goals for his country, with three figures now a realistic target rather than a fantasy. He is closing in on Peter Shilton’s all-time appearance record as well, just four caps short. Every time he steps onto the pitch, he stretches the definition of what an England No.9 can be.

But time wins in the end. When Kane finally walks away from international football, he will leave a crater, not a gap.

Right now, there are few obvious successors. The production line has not yet thrown up another phenomenon, just a handful of hopefuls trying to shape their own story. Among them, Delap stands alongside 17-year-old Aston Villa prodigy Brian Madjo as one of the more intriguing options, a player trying to prove there will be life after the most prolific No.9 England has ever seen.

Former England striker Bobby Zamora is watching closely. Speaking to GOAL in association with BetWright Premier League betting, he did not pretend the handover will be simple.

“I really don't know,” Zamora admitted when asked who might eventually wear Kane’s shirt. “Harry Kane is extremely, extremely special. There aren't many of him and to try and fill his boots is firstly going to be a very, very tall task. I don't know who that person is that's going to come in.”

Then he circled back to Delap.

“Potentially Delap. I'm interested to see how he takes the knock of the Chelsea situation. I actually thought he was going to be something really special. He's taken a little bit of a knock and I'm interested to see how he copes with that from the trajectory that he was on, aiming for the stars, taking a blip with injuries and inconsistencies and not as many goals as he probably would have liked at Chelsea. But yeah, he's potentially one.

“I think he needs to fit into the right sort of team. He has to fit into the right sort of team, but Harry's a very hard one to follow.”

That is the crux of Delap’s challenge. Talent alone will not be enough. He needs the right system, the right service, the right environment – a place where his physicality and penalty-box instincts are weapons, not afterthoughts. Forest believe they are that place. Delap does too.

If he proves them right, the narrative around him changes from “what went wrong at Chelsea?” to “is this the man to carry England’s attack into the next decade?”

For now, Kane keeps scoring, the records keep falling, and the clock keeps ticking. Somewhere behind him, on the banks of the Trent, a burly centre-forward is trying to make sure that when the armband and the No.9 shirt finally come off, England are not left staring into the void.