Liam Delap will be one of the most coveted players in England this summer, despite being unable to prevent Ipswich Town’s relegation from the Premier League.
The 22-year-old has scored 12 goals in 33 league games for the Tractor Boys, an achievement that only gains weight when you consider Ipswich have only won four games and scored 21 other goals all season.
Chelsea, Manchester United and Newcastle United are all interested in a move for him this summer and Borussia Dortmund have been linked too, with a £30m release clause almost guaranteed to be activated.
Delap is on the verge of becoming a Premier League superstar. He might have found it difficult to believe that only two years ago, when he was a “baby giraffe” who had been through failed loan spells at Stoke City and Preston North End.
‘Rory’s son’
At Stoke, Rory Delap is a club legend and iconic long-throw specialist, but to Liam and his younger brother Finn, he is just dad.
Almost unavoidably, he was Liam’s first coach too. Having just started out at Stoke after moving from Sunderland, Rory volunteered to help look after the primary school football team when his older son was just five years old, but he was glad not to be in charge of his football for long.
“With a lot of parents, there comes a point with most kids, where they want the parent just to be a parent, and they want their coaches to be their coaches,” says Gordon MacLelland, who interviewed Rory for his book Working with Parents in Sport.
“Today, where the world can very quickly come back into the home environment through technology and social media, that’s probably become even more important, that there’s no muddying of that grey area between the two roles.”
So Rory was glad when his son was snapped up by Derby’s academy at the age of seven: he wanted to instil his own values and beliefs in both of his sons – Finn now plays for Burton Albion – but was also conscious of not being overbearing.
“It was tough at times [because] I didn’t want to be the parent who coached, who played the game for them and then gave them a rocket in the car on the way home,” Rory said.
Javelin and gymnastics helped development
Rory also didn’t want to force Liam into football just because that was his own world. He did gymnastics and athletics, where the son of a long-throw specialist showed an unsurprising aptitude for javelin, but football was always his number one.
He never wanted to miss training or a game, and soon it became the main focus, but coaches at Derby were glad that he pursued other sports, because it imbued him with extra athleticism.
Promoted to the Derby Under-18s, he found himself working under dad again; Rory was working alongside a coach named Justin Walker.
“Everyone had an eye on Liam and was aware of his potential at that point, at the youth levels,” Walker tells The i Paper.
“We were trying to challenge him [by promotion to Under-18s] because obviously his physicality in his own age group was just standout.”
He adds: “Rory was always a supportive figure. But he was father first.
“It was a pleasure to see Rory’s relationship with Liam. Liam was very independent and had his own mind, as you can see on the football pitch now. He was never pushed into any situation by Rory.”
Derby’s Under-18s won the league title that year, pipping Liverpool on goal difference, and while Delap was only a peripheral figure in that team, his reputation on and off the field was growing.
He was already known for a ferocious work ethic and a fiercely competitive nature.
“Off the field, he’s such a personality. He’s the most likeable, bubbly character,” Walker says.
“But he can flip that switch: I think all Premier League defenders will remember playing against him this season.
“He’s a winner. He wants to win, and he wants to win no matter what he’s doing, playing cards, playing dominoes, golf, whatever he’s doing. I think that’s testament to his mum and dad.”
Bouncing off hard-nosed defenders
At cash-strapped Derby, 16-year-old Delap was already a saleable asset and Premier League champions Manchester City won the race for his signature.
After 32 goals in 30 league games for the reserves, Delap finally got his chance to play regular first-team football when he was loaned out to Stoke in 2022.
“There was a lot of fanfare,” says Ben Rowley, a Stoke season-ticket holder and regular podcaster.
“He even had photographs taken with the owner and that does not happen with new signings, not least loanees. But I think all the Championship were after him.”
Choosing Stoke was straightforward: it was a team he had grown up watching, his father was a club legend who was also working there and the chance to work under Michael O’Neill was an attractive one.
“He [Liam] just had that history with the club, and even to the point where, because they were friends with Ryan Shawcross’s family, he went to ask Ryan whether he was okay with him taking the No 17 shirt,” a club source says.
But for all the excitement, his time at Stoke never really got off the ground. O’Neill was sacked before the end of August and replaced by Alex Neil, while Delap found the transition to adult football difficult.
“I thought he took what he’d done in academy football and tried to bring it to the Championship,” a club source adds.
“I was watching someone with loads of energy, worked really hard and he was clearly big and powerful, but when you play three games in a week in the Championship, it’s against hard-nosed, been-round-the-block centre-halves, and he struggled with that. He didn’t score many goals but equally, I don’t remember him missing loads of chances.”
‘A baby giraffe’
Rowley remembers something similar. “He had quite unbelievable pace and power, more than any Stoke City striker that we’d seen in the Championship at that time.
“Unfortunately, he didn’t know quite how to use that pace and power. He was like a baby giraffe. You could see the ability and hunger was there, and he was a relentless presser, but didn’t quite know how to do it.”
After just three goals, his loan was terminated in January. Stoke boss Neil said he admired Liam, but pointedly told the press that that Rory had left the club shortly before City called him back.
Unfortunately, there were more bumps in the road to come. He was sent out on loan again, this time to Preston, where fans couldn’t believe their luck.
“We got him and [then Everton’s] Tom Cannon in: two up-and-coming, promising Premier League strikers, and you’re just thinking ‘What a great strike partnership this is going to be’,” says Preston fan Jack Tucker, host of The Butter Pie Podcast.
“But Tom Cannon was heavily favoured. He ended up scoring more goals and Liam just never really got going.
“He just needed a better club that will just give him that chance of being the main man, because I saw this absolute workhorse, someone who would just run around and press and fight for every single ball.”
Just one goal in 15 games for Preston was the result, while Cannon got eight.
Tucker adds: “He needed that spotlight on him. We weren’t really utilising him as a No 9.”
A question mark about his ability
After two loans, and two relative failures, the Delap hype train was slowing. Another temporary switch was arranged, this time to Hull City for the 2023-24 season, where he found comfort in a familiar face.
“People were still hanging a question mark of what level Liam will play at,” says Walker, Delap’s old Derby coach who was by this point assistant manager to Liam Rosenior at Hull.
“Knowing Liam [Delap] as we did as a character, and having obviously close relationships with Liam and his family, we always knew what we were going to get in terms of a person and a character.
“But the most important thing was we had an identity of the way we played, and I think Liam fitted that as a profile, and it helped him develop his game.”
Your next read
“I was trying to work with him trying to score a few tap-ins, which I know he’s gone on to do, but generally, they were all for Match of the Day showreel!
“But there were various finishes that he took time to practise, and his positioning has improved with his game experience. So he deserves a lot of credit for the way his game’s developed and matured.”
Delap scored on his Hull debut and had seven goals to his name by the end of the calendar year. After a lengthy injury lay-off, he came back to score against Ipswich during the run-in, a goal that perhaps finalised his summer move, a £20m transfer to Portman Road and the Premier League.
“I know he will be disappointed how, as a team, this season has ended up,” Walker adds. “But on a personal level, he’s shown that he can adapt to the top league, and he’s shown the qualities that we all know he possesses.”
Just as they were when he was a promising youth-team player, the suitors for his signature are already gathering. Via Derby, Manchester, Stoke, Preston and Hull, Liam Delap is going to the very top.
from Football - The i Paper https://ift.tt/dbhFauO
Post a Comment
EmoticonClick to see the code!
To insert emoticon you must added at least one space before the code.