If there is hope for Ipswich Town, it will come in the extensive framework of Liam Delap.
The 21-year-old's latest move has helped the Tractor Boys triumph at Portman Road for the tenth time in the Premier League this season.
When he's at his best – and his performance in beating Chelsea in the Champions League was as perfect as you'll see – Delap is the unplayable target clawing his way to the top of the game.
Where some attackers see a lost cause, it is Delap who only sees an opportunity to wreak havoc.
The son of former Stoke midfielder Rory Delap, the sight of this fleet-footed striker with socks halfway up his shins charging at defenders is a throwback to yesteryear.
How Delap is at the forefront of the urge to survive
Ipswich manager Kieran McKenna has hailed the Manchester City academy graduate as a “different animal” to the player signed in July after mixed loan spells at Stoke, Preston and Hull.
Delap has been so impressive since signing a five-year contract with Ipswich last summer that a first England call-up may not be far away. The player is already warning potential candidates.
“He's trying to get better every day and take on the challenge of playing in the Premier League,” McKenna said this week ahead of Ipswich's Super Sunday trip to Fulham, live on Sky Sports.
“I spoke to him today about taking on the challenge of leading a team because when you are the number nine in a team that comes from where we come from, it comes with a lot of responsibility.
“He takes each day as it comes and doesn't concentrate beyond that. I think that's exactly the right thing to do.”
There is a new meaning to the term 'Delaped'.
His father Rory played 358 Premier League games for Derby County, Southampton and Stoke City. Growing up in a football family in Winchester, these are less long throws, more long legs.
Delap was at Derby when City spotted him as a teenager and saw his enormous potential with the ball at his feet. At City he scored 24 goals in Premier League 2, the most in a single season for a player in the history of the competition.
His talent has been known among English coaches for some time. Gary O'Neil's tenure at Wolves came to an end after his side were on the receiving end at Molineux.
Reflecting on the player's role in Matt Doherty's opening goal last month, O'Neil said: “Liam Delap did that a lot when he was playing Under-18s against kids who were two feet shorter than him, when it looked like he was two years old. played for a long time.” up, knocking people out of the way and running through.
“But that's not acceptable to concede that goal at Premier League level. Liam Delap won't score that goal against any other Premier League team.” Delap defied that belief by adding Chelsea to his hit list.
A return to an old-fashioned centre-forward
Long before he beat them last Monday, he was an acquaintance of Blues recruitment chief Joe Shields and head coach Enzo Maresca from their time together in Manchester City's academy.
Delap cut his teeth in senior football lower down the football pyramid and is the latest young talent to blossom at elite level after progressing through City's Elite Development Squad (EDS).
The EDS was founded and then developed by Maresca to create a pathway from the club's academy to the first team, with the likes of Phil Foden and Cole Palmer breaking into Pep Guardiola's squad.
Speaking to Sky Sports in 2021, former Manchester City youth coach Brian Barry-Murphy – who replaced Maresca as City's EDS manager – admitted the club now “looks at it as a B team”.
“Previously they were seen as an academy team. Enzo separated that – he put it outside the academy and ahead of the first team, where they were almost in transition,” Barry-Murphy said.
Selling EDS and non-first-team players has made the club more than £500 million since Guardiola's arrival in 2016, but sacking academy graduates for 'pure profit' seems rather foolish when the asset appreciates in value within six months doubles.
Morgan Rogers, one of the breakout stars of the season at Aston Villa, and Borussia Dortmund's exciting 20-year-old Jamie Gittens also spent time in the City system. Both will now be firmly on Thomas Tuchel's radar.
Delap has followed Palmer in this regard, having been signed for what now seems like a £20 million snip. It is conceivable that Tuchel could field a quartet of former City youth players in his first game as England boss against Albania and they would not look out of place.
A talent for attacking space
As for Delap, Maresca had tipped his former Man City Under-23 striker to become a “key player” for the national team, just days before storming to a long-awaited first top-flight home win in 22 years. .
Delap won, converting an early penalty before setting up Omari Hutchinson for Ipswich to score nine goals in 18 Premier League games.
It means he has also been directly involved in 50 percent of his club's Premier League goals – only Mohamed Salah (67%) has a better ratio this season. If it was a Chelsea audition, it passed with flying colors.
A number of bigger clubs are happy with what they have seen, but McKenna insists the rightful attention will not be on the old-fashioned centre-forward's mind.
“There were so many outstanding individual performances, but Liam was fantastic. There's no doubt about that,” said McKenna.
“I told people around the club that he is improving and he is a different animal now than he was in July.
“We're seeing that pace of improvement, which shows the increased maturity in him, the desire to improve and that's a really positive sign at 21.
“I don't think he's thinking about that (England call-up) to be honest. Liam is a funny guy. He is good at staying in the moment.
“He enjoys his football, he enjoys the group of boys he is in the dressing room with. He comes to training and wants to have fun and now he also wants to get better.”
Maturity in choosing the right option
With seven goals to his name, Delap sits between England internationals Ollie Watkins and Dominic Solanke in the current goalscoring charts, but he needs support around him.
Only Erling Haaland (44%) and Chris Wood (42%) have scored a higher percentage of goals for their team than Delap (39 percent). The win over Chelsea was only the second time Ipswich has kept a clean sheet – only Leicester have kept fewer – so their talisman will have to keep delivering the goods.
McKenna had previously spoken of the club's home record “being the story” until his players produced a result they could enjoy in front of their own fans.
There were home battles with Manchester United and Aston Villa, the promoted team also scoring late goals against Leicester and Bournemouth to let victory slip from their grasp.
Delap has shifted the narrative on himself, but the striker has a flat head on his broad, sturdy shoulders.
“I don't really look at things like that,” he said when asked about attracting transfer interest.
“I'm just concentrating on Ipswich. We're lucky to be in the Premier League. I think we have a great opportunity here in Ipswich and we're trying to show our abilities week in, week out, which for me is a big plus. ”
Support needed to supplement the survival bid
Delap has so often chosen the right option, providing two assists to go along with his seven goals from 33 attempts, a shot conversion rate that is the twelfth best in the division.
His involvement has helped Ipswich reach double the number of points in the last nine games compared to the first ten, but to continue their improvement into the new year, McKenna knows he needs to strengthen in a number of positions this month .
It will be welcome news for Delap that the club are monitoring Jaden Philogene's situation at Aston Villa. McKenna only wanted Villa to activate a matching clause last summer after selling him to Hull in 2023.
But Philogene has started four games in all competitions this season and adding the 22-year-old to Ipswich's attacking options would lighten the burden on Delap.
Over-reliance on one source for goals only becomes a problem when it is removed. For now, McKenna can continue winding up his human wrecking ball and instilling fear in opponents.
Watch Fulham vs Ipswich on Super Sunday, live on Sky Sports; starting at 2 p.m
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