Chelsea strike power: Delap is shiny new toy but uncut gem; Jackson offers rare point of difference

They are quite similar," Enzo Maresca said last week of Liam Delap and Nicolas Jackson, but of course nobody wanted to take any notice of that bit. Already battle lines are being drawn, positions entrenched. Delap or Jackson. Jackson or Delap. One must survive. One must go reluctantly on loan to Serie A. Those are just the rules.

- Jonathan Liew

On these terms alone, it's been a very good week for Delap. Against Flamengo in the Club World Cup on Friday, he was preferred up front, and played with bristling, controlled aggression for more than an hour before making way for Jackson. He then watched as his replacement lost possession with his first touch, went studs-up with his second, was sent off and scapegoated for Chelsea's 3-1 defeat, and later issued a grovelling apology on social media for his actions.

Beyond this, there is a kind of momentum to Chelsea's new £30m signing right now. Commentators raise their voices a little higher whenever he bears down on goal. It helps that he is English 12 months before a World Cup, and can thus knock on Thomas Tuchel's door. He did media duties at the weekend and spoke very well. I thought. Above all Delap is just good and new in a culture where this is all that matters.

Jackson, meanwhile, has been at Chelsea for two seasons and publicly feuding with Mikel John Obi for quite a lot of that time. Indeed such was Mikel's splenetic reaction to Jackson's red card against Flamengo that the broadcaster Dazn was forced to apologise for his language. If Delap is the known unknown, then Jackson is the known known: the gifted, flawed forward who scores plenty and misses more, who wears his emotions on his sleeve, a player who could have been cultivated in a laboratory to make Chelsea fans argue with each other on the internet.