Avanti West Coast, Coach E. An empty table, seat on the aisle. Phone charger plugged in, cable strewn across the desk. Slouched ever so slightly. Content, a bit bored.
Destination: London Euston, a Friday afternoon in late May. Before Liam Delap became this thing, this new shiny striker, this new great hulking hope.
The throwback from nowhere. The sort of player who once piqued your interest in the sport when it wasn’t all inverted wingers and false nines. Muscling, devil-may-care. The sort who now has observers saying the quiet bit out loud. Harry Kane 2.0? Well, maybe. Let’s see, it’ll be fun to find out.
On that train, 24 hours before the FA Cup final, Delap is minding his own business when the carriage suddenly titters. It’s stopped at Watford Junction for some time. A Manchester City tracksuit is spotted. And then another, wheeling heavy loads behind.
Nathan Ake emerges, Ederson too. The champions are disembarking, Pep Guardiola striding to the exit. Kids press up against the windows, banging, cameras out.
Travelling backwards, Delap turns his head to the right. Leans over to the glass. Peers out, watches his mates head off, attempting to complete another Double. Possibly trying to catch an eye or two. To throw a look, a look that conveys ‘coincidence, hey? Who would have thought? Anyway, good luck tomorrow’.
City’s squad keep their heads down though, out to the coach and on to their hotel. Delap returns to his phone knowing that in another life, in another age, he is on that platform with them. He is in the team when they eventually lose to Manchester United at Wembley a day later.
It has taken only a matter of months for Liam Delap to rise from Man City’s loanee ranks to in-demand Premier League striker
The 21-year-old joined the club six years ago in a £1million deal from Derby (pictured in 2020)
Delap signed a contract extension with the talented forward in 2021 (pictured with Txiki Begiristain) and seemed in pole-position to graduate to the first team
But he has spent the last few weeks completing post-season training – following a first real successful loan away at Hull City – in City’s academy building, not the first team area, choosing to park his car in the staff spots.
As City churn out victory after victory to hunt down an historic fourth consecutive title, Delap quietly goes about his business on the same campus away from others. He heads off to Portugal in June for a close-season camp with best friend James McAtee and is ready for what comes next.
He is aware that he’ll leave in the summer, and everybody is eventually happy at a £20million switch to Premier League newcomers Ipswich Town – edged along by some intervention from Ed Sheeran via Zoom.
City insert a buyback clause at over £30m, just in case. With eight top-flight goals already and the general feeling of carrying Ipswich’s threat as this one-man battering ram, new England head coach Thomas Tuchel overseeing with interest, his value rockets by the week.
It was £1m six years ago, City the only club in for Derby County’s jewel. A deal driven through by City’s academy recruitment duo Joe Shields and Stewart Thompson – both of whom are now at Chelsea, who are seen as frontrunners to steal Delap away from Portman Road.
Thompson had been watching Delap for three years before committing the money to land him at 16. City believe that other clubs dismissed him because of his size, because Delap was so large and physically developed so early, beating defenders about, that it didn’t offer a reflection on his actual ability. At 13, someone for scouts to easily ignore, muttering what happens when defenders catch up in height.
Yet there was something about him. The pace, the raw blistering pace. The unusually deft feet. An ability to play across the front three and, when barging through and dinking over the goalkeeper during a game away at United’s Carrington base, an obvious nous coupling the brawn.
He’d ripped City to bits on his own in the Under 15s, scoring twice. Worries existed about his link-up play but he passed every test. By the time City ultimately did the deal he wasn’t even the tallest of the group. Even so, his stature at the club to rise exponentially.
Man City’s records have Delap scoring 47 goals in 61 games but the reality is much higher
After some concern over his height early in his youth career, the player has developed into a bullish presence on the pitch
Forty-seven goals in 61 games for the age-group teams are his statistics online but the reality is higher and some of them were magnificent. Running through six of Stoke City’s team from the halfway line in a Youth Cup game; a 30-yarder on the turn at Arsenal. The catalogue is full – and benefitted from one-on-one finishing sessions with Brian Kidd.
He netted 18 minutes into his first-team debut in a Carabao Cup win over Bournemouth in September 2020 and suddenly there came some big shouts by people around City. One source, even before that Bournemouth match, when the goal was breath-taking – not least because Delap was pointing and demanding where Phil Foden lay the assist – was mentioning a certain Erling Haaland.
The talk of Europe, the Norwegian was a pipe dream back then, not arriving until 2022. ‘We’ve got our own Haaland,’ they said. Another labelled Delap as a ‘mobile Edin Dzeko’ and around these parts, that’s pretty high praise. ‘He’s like a wrecking ball,’ one offered. Analysts remarked that the club didn’t possess anybody else like him.
Guardiola will have special plans for the 21-year-old when City head for Ipswich on Sunday. Delap is relishing the chance to rough up a beleaguered back line and it was noted the force with which he left one on Mateo Kovacic in August’s reverse fixture.
‘Liam, we know from here, is so aggressive,’ Guardiola said at the time. More of the same should be quite the sight. For Ipswich and for England – Enzo Maresca, the man who coached him in City’s academy and clearly fancies a reunion at Stamford Bridge, is hyping up a senior international call.
When he was younger, Delap took up gymnastics to improve his flexibility. He was a sharp 100m and 200m sprinter. He fancied himself at rugby, with the tactics at Ecclesbourne School in Derby just to offload to Delap and let him barge through.
With the round ball, his pleading to come off for Year 8 mid-game for a toilet break with his team losing, then returning and scoring a hat-trick in the final 10 minutes, is down in legend.
He hurled a javelin in a similar vein to his father, former Republic of Ireland international Rory – renowned for those spearing long throws when at Stoke. At nine years old Delap Jnr had a go at those as well, to great success, before other parents complained that it ruined the game. He apparently hasn’t attempted once since.
It goes without saying that Delap Snr is a significant influence, travelling to games and the family went with the McAtees to an England Under 21s fixture in Northern Ireland this season.
Unlike his famous father Rory, Delap has avoided making long throw-ins a feature in his game
The tight-knit family travelled to watch Rory on Soccer AM in 2014 (Delap front left, brother Finn front left)
Rory was sat inside an empty Etihad Stadium on a scout’s pass while coaching at Stoke for the Bournemouth moment. His mother, Helen, is a physio, a marathon runner who completed the Three Peaks Challenge. Sister Neve plays netball for Cygnets in the Derby league; brother Finn, a teenage defender, is at Burton Albion.
The two brothers were on the set of Soccer AM with Delap Snr in 2014 alongside Carl Barat, the co-frontman of the Libertines. Little did Barat know that in the fullness of time, he wouldn’t be viewed as the biggest name on set that day.
Free of persistent injuries to have threatened a halting of his development, Delap is beginning a journey to that stardom and there has been a maturing, a curbing of a temper over time.
Red cards had been semi-frequent and two came when meeting his old side, Derby. One of them, two yellows, was a result of him booting the ball in the general direction of Derby’s bench. Once at Blackburn, after a tiring camp with England youth, he kicked out and saw red.
‘You could see he was going to get narky and get sent off that day,’ one source said. ‘A great kid, really nice lad. He’s got that edge on the pitch, he’ll bump and bang you, but off it he’s really sound.
‘He doesn’t change, I saw him off the coach at Ipswich the other week smiling and signing autographs when the others went inside with their headphones on.’
Those who know him describe a youngster who can be daft, in the nicest sense, yet academically bright – excelling at maths and geography – and who doesn’t mind a jape. One City kit man realised that when his Mini Cooper was being raced around the training ground, later finding that Delap had pinched the keys and taken it for a quick spin.
Things became more serious as Haaland tipped up three years ago, Delap knowing he needed games – proper games – elsewhere. So came the loans, first Stoke and then Preston North End and Hull.
After being displaced by Haaland, Delap undertook a number of loan spells, including at Hull
Delap has also been a fixture in England’s Under 21 side under Lee Carsley and will be eyeing a spot in Thomas Tuchel’s rotation
Bouncing back from a three-month knee injury, Delay sparkled for Hull and was full of ‘scary’ potential according to former manager Liam Rosenior
Michael O’Neill was sacked seven days into the Stoke stint. Delap Snr, a coach, also left. ‘When those transitions happen, young players suffer,’ a source said. Three goals in 24 appearances.
Preston came knocking in the January of that season. Fifteen games, one goal. England continued to pick him and Under 21s boss Lee Carsley was already eyeing up promoting Delap to lead his line after the 2023 European Championship victory. And despite the numbers, Preston actually helped shape him. They saw someone described as ‘within himself’ when he arrived although still eager to learn.
First-team coach Paul Gallagher regularly took Delap for extra sessions – instigated by both of them at different times – where drills centred on learning additional movements and runs. Perfecting the ‘double movement’ with a feint, getting across a defender more efficiently.
A wily forward in the Championship, Gallagher made a career on that sort of intelligence. This was the next necessary evolution of his game after Maresca had coached him to remain within the width of the box after years of charging around out wide at City.
Then the Delap people knew was starting to re-emerge at Hull – even with a three-month knee injury. Liam Rosenior, who did shift him wide on occasion, labelled Delap’s potential as ‘scary’. Eight goals in 19 games. He became the Under 21s’ link man, getting the best out of Morgan Rogers and McAtee, and still enjoying that physical side.
‘If you want to go and fight him, he will match you,’ interim coach Ben Futcher said earlier this season. ‘If you want to race him, he’ll win the race. It’s a good aggression. You don’t want to take that out of him. He’s an absolute handful.’
Delap has been a perennial bright spark for Ipswich and helped spur them to victory against Chelsea in December
The player has also been described as an ‘absolute handful’ – and is fast proving why in the English top flight
A menace, a nuisance. All other variants have been attributed to Delap from various sources throughout his journey. Perhaps Guardiola summed it up best in 2022, after an eye-catching cameo against Fulham, though.
‘Traditional British striker. A killer,’ he said. ‘Every training session, against Aymeric (Laporte), against Ruben (Dias), against John (Stones), Nathan (Ake); he fights, and most of the time wins the duels… or breaks his nose or something like that.’
Coaches have stood on the side of training pitches and remarked, in fairly colourful language, how they wouldn’t fancy marking him.
And that is Delap: the bulldozer with a finesse worthy of the Premier League and ultimately more. The train, at last, has left the station.
