Chelsea vs Los Angeles Prediction: Delap to mark debut with a goal

Group D of the Fifa Club World Cup gets underway tonight, and the first English team makes their tournament bow as Chelsea face Los Angeles at the impressive Mercedes-Benz Stadium in Atlanta (20:00 BST, Channel 5). 

Enzo Maresca’s men will hope to go deep into this tournament after their Conference League success, and below you can find my Chelsea vs Los Angeles predictions. 

Team News

It’s all eyes on the new boys for Chelsea heading to the United States of America and understandably, the most excitement surrounds their new number nine, Liam Delap. The former Ipswich Town man joined for £30m this summer and scored 12 goals for the Tractor Boys in the Premier League last term, so there are high hopes that the 22-year-old can hit the ground running.

Chelsea Club World Cup Preview

He should lead the line here, while there was also space in Maresca’s 28-man squad for new arrivals Dario Essugo and Mamadou Sarr, and they could both see some gametime. Keep an eye out for the goalkeeping spot, as with limited options and having missed out on Mike Maignan, Mike Penders may be handed his debut having done well on loan at Genk last term. The 19-year-old is certainly one to watch for the future. 

Meanwhile Cole Palmer, Enzo Fernandez and Moises Caicedo are all included and should play key parts if Chelsea are to go deep into this Club World Cup. 

Chelsea fans will be all too familiar with Los Angeles’ front man Olivier Giroud. The French striker played a key role in their 2019 Europa League win, scoring 11 goals in 14 appearances in that competition. He will start this one, while the Black and Gold also have on-loan Celtic man Odin Holm in their ranks, although he is likely to miss this one through injury. 

Los Angeles Club World Cup Preview

Former Tottenham captain Hugo Lloris will start in goal while Denis Bouanga is the key man in the attack, and could cause Chelsea problems from his nominal left-wing starting position. 

Chelsea vs Los Angeles Odds

Chelsea are the clear favourites here, priced at 1/5 to win the game with Betfred. That gives them an implied win probability of 83%, while Los Angeles, or LAFC, are 14/1 to secure an unlikely win. A draw can be backed at 13/2, while BTTS has been priced up at 11/10.

Over 2.5 goals is available with Betfred at 4/9, while new signing Delap is the favourite to score first at 3/1. There’s also plenty of Bet Builders and Price Boosts for this match that you can find by clicking on the link above. 

Liam Delap to score anytime @ 4/5

There’s no better way for a striker to mark his debut than with a goal, and I think Delap will get off to the perfect start in this one. He will be highly-motivated to find the net and should have a decent supply of chances provided to him by the likes of Pedro Neto and Palmer. 

We saw last season what he can do against elite teams, even when he was playing for a poor Premier League side in the form of Ipswich. Now the level of his teammates has gone up, I expect him to rise to the challenge and start banging in the goals for Chelsea.

Football Odds

He’s got the pace and power to trouble any defence and I don’t believe he will need much time to settle at all. LAFC provide the perfect opponents for him to get up and running, while his manager has been bigging him up in the build-up to this tournament. 

"Now he is a Chelsea player, I'm going to say again, I don't have any doubt that he can be in the future England number nine.”

"We won with Manchester City's Under-23s - he scored 24, 25 goals that season - so he knows exactly what we can give him, I know what Liam can give us. It's a win-win. We like Liam, Liam likes us, so it was an easy conversation."

There’s been a lot of talk about Chelsea’s cursed number nine shirt, but Delap has the quality to make that a thing of the past. I’m expecting at least one goal on his debut.

Bet Buider Boost - Chelsea/Chelsea HT/FT, Chelsea to score 3+ goals, Chelsea 6+ corners @ 4/1

The odds suggest that this will be an incredibly one-sided game and I have to agree with that theory. We saw how Bayern Munich smashed 10 goals past Auckland City over the weekend and although I don’t think that the gap between these two is quite as gargantuan, Maresca will be hoping for an easy win.

I like the look of this Bet Builder Boost on offer from Betfred, in which we need Chelsea to be leading at half-time and full-time. That shouldn’t be an issue given the difference in ability between the two squads, while backing Chelsea to score three or more goals is also an angle I like. Delap will be desperate to score, with Neto, Palmer and Noni Madueke all able to find the net if needed. 

Today's Football Fixtures

Chelsea averaged 6.16 corners per match in the Premier League last term, so backing them to get six or more here, in a game they should dominate, also feels doable. Plus, Betfred have boosted this one from 3/1 to 4/1, so let’s try and take advantage of this extra value. 

Offers

Sunday: Place an In-Play single bet of £10 or more at odds of 1/2+ on any Club World Cup match played on Sunday and get £5 in Free Bets to use In-Play on Monday’s Club World Cup matches.

Acca Flex: Place a pre-match 5+ leg Football accumulator and get a CASH bonus up to 100% if all of your selections win or your money back as CASH if one leg lets you down.

Click here for the latest Football Odds

You can read all our latest Football Betting Tips at our dedicated Betfred Insights content hub