Fair point and I'm not saying Delap won't become WC, I'm saying we need some senior attacker players and Delap isn't at that stage yet.
Liam Delap | £30m release clause?
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I think it may come down to the mentality of those who are the most talented of any given group. Some become arrogant and see others there to serve them and other recognise the contribution of those around them, even if they are of inferior skill.
Maybe he has started to realize he can achieve more by being unselfish. Time will tell.
Agree I think the Gyokeres conversation depends all on CL, if we get that then I think we'll have a genuine shot at being considered.
I do find it laughable people are lamenting a striker who's at the age of 22 is playing for a bottom 3 club in the league with championship level players scoring 12 goals in the prem.
You do realise the people feeding him are the likes of Johnson, sam morsy, with Jack clarke with the most assists with 4 followed by enciso with 3.
For reference Bruno has more assist than both of them combined, Amad has 6 by himself. There's no reason to think this guy wouldn;t be scoring 18-20 goals in a settled United team, especially with the addition of the likes of Cunha replacing garnacho.
You do realise the people feeding him are the likes of Johnson, sam morsy, with Jack clarke with the most assists with 4 followed by enciso with 3.
For reference Bruno has more assist than both of them combined, Amad has 6 by himself. There's no reason to think this guy wouldn;t be scoring 18-20 goals in a settled United team, especially with the addition of the likes of Cunha replacing garnacho.
It's not so much that we can do better than him, it's we must do better than him. I don't see him as that huge an upgrade on Rasmus: I think Mateta would be a better fit. Stronger and scores a variety of sorts of goals. Viktor Gyokeres would cost more admittedly, but at least he presumably fits Amorim's style (and I reckon would be cheaper than Osimhen, who I haven't seen enough of but he hasn't convinced me. Both remain untested in - and by - the PL and would be an expensive risk... my first choice would still be Kane, despite his age: could he be the next Robin van Persie?
That still wouldn't absolve our striker from not scoring a lot of goals.
Its not so laughable when one considers the consequences of not getting our striker buy absolutely right this summer.
Hojlund was 20 and had 10 goals in Italy. How's he doing now ?
Andy Carroll, then the next big English hope, got 11 goals in 20 appearances at Newcastle, which caught the eye of Liverpool. How did that turn out ?
Delap isn't exactly an 18 year old Rooney. He's 22 with 12 league goals. A good start, but there are no guarantees, and as we've seen with the two above, that may not extrapolate to bigger and better things at a much bigger club with infinitely more pressure.
Rooney was a 10-15 league goals a season man for most of his career with us. So were Cantona, Hughes, Cole and Solkjaer.
Strikers who score 20-25 goals a season are as rare as hens teeth - in the PL era, only Van Nistelrooy did it consistently for us. What we need is a centre forward who can form the focal point of a functioning attack. If he can do that and his 10-15 goals make up part of a 35-40 goal 3 man attack, that's absolutely ok.
The best United attack of my lifetime, between 2006 and 2009, had Rooney scoring 14, 12 and 12 in three seasons, Ronaldo scoring 17, 31 and 18 and then a combination of Solskjaer, Saha, Tevez and Berbatov scoring 8, 19 and 14.
Rooney consistently demonstrated he could score a lot of goals in all comps. Delap at 22, has 13 total league goals to his name. We need an RvN 2002 and RvP 2012 type striker who can get a lot more goals than what Delap is capable of.
Only seen 7-8 matches from him but Delap is an interesting player. Has quite a decent range of skills, good athletic traits, very aggressive, and surprises defenders with those turns and surges with the ball, holds his own physically, competes. Too often Hojlund this season has been giving defenders their easiest day of the season physically despite his size and speed.
Delap does tend to be a bit head down when running with the ball though, will create space then ends up running into trouble or giving the ball away because he loses awareness of his passing options, touch can be erratic which is always a concern for me when moving to a top club. However the ability to carry the ball, beat defenders 1 v 1 makes him able to create shooting opportunities for himself, Cunha would also bring this, with a fair bit more technical finesse, having an attack with multiple ball carriers, adding in Diallo and Garnacho just creates so many more options.
Wouldn't be against this. We need a functioning attack, it can never just be one player who has to get the goals, rounded fowards who can create and score is always a better base than trying to get one dimensional goalscorers like Osimehn,
Delap does tend to be a bit head down when running with the ball though, will create space then ends up running into trouble or giving the ball away because he loses awareness of his passing options, touch can be erratic which is always a concern for me when moving to a top club. However the ability to carry the ball, beat defenders 1 v 1 makes him able to create shooting opportunities for himself, Cunha would also bring this, with a fair bit more technical finesse, having an attack with multiple ball carriers, adding in Diallo and Garnacho just creates so many more options.
Wouldn't be against this. We need a functioning attack, it can never just be one player who has to get the goals, rounded fowards who can create and score is always a better base than trying to get one dimensional goalscorers like Osimehn,
I do absolutely agree with you that players wilt under the pressure of playing for us, so that is absolutely an unknown. However, i think both of those comparisons are unfair and not relevant, and i;ll explain why.
For one, the italian league is far, far easier for strikers. This is beyond argument to me, there's so much more time and space, Mctom is running riot and as we've seen in the past from the likes of Lukaku and now Mose Kean being top scorers. I don't think any forwards that have come from the italian league recently have been able to replicate it in the faster, much more physical/intense prem. Also he came with the pressure of a huge price tag, but i see the comparison.
As for Andy Carroll, he was never a prolific scorer (and hell we dont know if delap is as the sample size is too small) but Carroll has 17 goals in 134 apps for newcastle and 21 goals in 142 for westham. He scored 8 in 58 for pool. He was true to form for pool, and consistent across all clubs. It wasn't as if the pressure of playing for pool got to him, he was exactly the same player. Capable of scoring the odd wonder goal and good in the air - he also went with a huge price tag.
We don't know if delap will handle the pressure, but i do think based on what i've already said the signs are more positive (small price, proven in the league, played for City, young, scoring despite poor service and in the 3rd worse team in the league) than negative and it would be nice if people got a little more excited about it from my PoV.
I find it interesting that Utd are trying to get Delap and Cunha completed early. Seems they have definitely seen something in both players that makes them both primary targets for no10 and no9.
Thats not really fair becuase he's played what, 33 games? He has 12 or 13 goals and 2 assists in this many games for a relegation team. That suggests some strong output in a campaign.
At 30m, he's worth the gamble. However, you could imagine many games where Cunha, if signed, or Zirkzee would play as the number 9.
Both players are obviously coveted so United are probably attempting to take care of the business early this time to avoid a long protracted transfer saga. Hopefully, once those two are sorted we can look at Mastantuono and Ederson.
Its a double edged imo. On one hand, he may have scored 12 times in a poor side. On another, there's literally zero pressure at Ispwich compared to the mountain of global fanbase pressure he will see if he's Man United's #9. Therefore its hard to extrapolate what might happen from Ipswich to United.
Yeah, the hope is he’s young and develops even more, plus (hopefully) surrounded by better players/attackers (we should be nowhere near this league position next season!), he can score a few more and eventually turn into a 20 goal a season striker.
Ideally, of course, as you say - we’d sign a more proven goalscorer now but there’s only really one of Osimhen or Gyokeres who fits that criteria - seemingly on the move, the market is quite competitive and we’re tight on finances. So there could be a host of other reasons (outside of pure finances) one or both of those don’t want to sign for us.
I agree that is what we need but frankly those players simply don't currently exist outside of the likes of Lewa and Kane who are not available.
Of course, but hel bring some goals. He doesn't need to be the finished article if there are others to score and create too. The concept of Cunha and Delap is something I'm fine with if it opens up room to make the side better elsewhere.
Rooney had a 16 year career in the PL. He only scored more than 20 goals in all comps 3 times.
Van Persie scored 20 PL goals twice in his entire career. Outside those two times he averaged less than 10 league goals a season across the other 9 years.
Van Nistelrooy had four 20 goal seasons. The only other players to ever do that are Henry, Aguero, Shearer, Kane and Salah. Haaland will probably join them next year. That is the calibre of player we are talking about - we've had one in 30 odd years, despite spending 20 of those years at the very top of the tree.
It's all well and good saying that's what we need, but we have to be realistic as to what and where we are right now. We need to build a functioning team that can compete for European places and position us towards challenging for titles again in a couple of years. Potential "All Time" Premier League talents aren't looking at us finishing 15th and dropping their knickers, and we need to move away from hurling money at the sort of ones who might be attracted for the wrong reasons.
If he manages 15 premier league goals then it's not bad at all.
Not sure about the clamour for Delap. There is a thing within the Premier league whereby any overhyped English players gets peddled toward Manchester United. Aaron Wan Bissaka, Luke Shaw, Harry Maguire, Phil Jones, Ashley Young. These stories rarely ever end well. They need to be of outstanding quality to join Manchester United. That is what the likes of Michael Carrick, Wayne Rooney and Rio Ferdinand were.
I have heard people talk about signing Delap to fulfill some pathetic quota or because he is cheap. Not convinced about his technical ability or goal scoring prowess. It really is a sign of the dearth of quality central forwards. The best I can think of is Ekitike.
Beyond Delap, what United really ought to focus on is the creativity of the team. They need more central midfielders and playmakers that control games. They need more wide players, more fullbacks with end products. Buying a striker, and buying a potentially one season wonder striker, is not going elevate the poor goal record of this team. More work needs to be done and frankly, I am not convinced these players linked to United have the quality to raise the bar.
I have heard people talk about signing Delap to fulfill some pathetic quota or because he is cheap. Not convinced about his technical ability or goal scoring prowess. It really is a sign of the dearth of quality central forwards. The best I can think of is Ekitike.
Beyond Delap, what United really ought to focus on is the creativity of the team. They need more central midfielders and playmakers that control games. They need more wide players, more fullbacks with end products. Buying a striker, and buying a potentially one season wonder striker, is not going elevate the poor goal record of this team. More work needs to be done and frankly, I am not convinced these players linked to United have the quality to raise the bar.
I agree with the general sentiment, but I just don't think Delap is the player who will get us there. He will be marginally better than Hojlund, but won't come near the level of quality that will drag us from 15th to 4th anytime soon, even with Cunha contributing goals.
He's much, much better than Rasmus.
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@mitchmouse what exactly does Mateta do that Delap doesn’t, that makes him more worthy of a gamble at 27/8 years old by the time he’d be with us?
What exactly does Delap lack for you that makes you think £30m isn’t a good investment?
I'm not sold on this but I suppose it's possibly worth a punt at 30m. Delap and Cunha for under 100m isn't bad when you think they have 26 PL goals between them.
Basically anyone who can score more than 3 PL goals is an improvement on poor Hojlund
Basically anyone who can score more than 3 PL goals is an improvement on poor Hojlund
Fair points.. However at around £30m this doesn't sound like a huge gamble money wise as even if things don't work out, you can recoup allot of that money. If you watch Delap, you'll notice that technically and in terms of physicality he's levels above Hojlund and is a decent all round footballer and has done well in the Premier league so far. I just don't want us to miss out on the next rising superstar British striker.. There's no guarantee that an Osimhen or a Gjokeres will work in the Premier league. You'd spend allot more on them in terms of a fee and a salary, and the Premier league may just humble them and we'd be stuck with them.
The jury is still out on that. Its one thing to look impressive at Ipswich or Atalanta, and another to do it under the massive pressure of being the starting #9 at United.
Surely not. He's on a completely different level to Hojlund.
If the reports about Delap and Cunha are true, it would seem more of situation where Amorim really wants Cunha and knows he can't buy another striker in the £60m range, he the cheaper buy with Delap. Its a massive gamble imo.
Hojlund hit 16 in his first season, Delap is around the same. Hojlund has had to perform at a bigger club under huge pressure. Delap has done none of that. I don't think the evidence backs up your statement. I think both players are not good enough for Manchester United.
Delap is able to show his worth against PL opposition this season quite constantly. That's irrespective of the team hes playing for (being a relegation side just supports the point even more).
He's got far more about his game than Hojlund too
And why is Delap age relevant to his success? Again, age is not conduit for guaranteed success either way.
Phil Jones was not overhyped. Neither was Luke Shaw.
Hojlund got 16 in 43 apps for a side finishing 8th with much better quality.
Delap has what 13 in 33 games for a relegation side, whilst actually playing much better football too. The evidence very much supports his point.
Hojlund of this year yes. The 16 goal Hojlund of last year was better and not too far off from this version of Delap. Once the pressure of needing to perform set in, his confidence began to quickly erode. Andy Carroll's first couple of years at Pool spring to mind.
If there's something drastically better than this year's Delap from last year's Hojlund, i haven't seen it.
He really wasn't. He had a purple patch of 7 goals in 6 games but was actually fluctuating between ok and not great in all the other ones, whilst being surrounded by a lot better quality.
Delap is more direct, he's a better dribbler, he's stronger in the air and he's sharper than both hojlund of last season and this season.
I don't think any of them were really. I don't think Delap is being overhyped that much either by people. The general consensus is that he's had a good season and kick on to become a great striker but I don't think anyone is expecting him to be the next Kane or Shearer.
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I suppose the question is do you think Delap could replicate around 12+ goals most seasons in a United side?
In which case I’d argue it’s a step in the right direction for a low fee.
I’d completely understand a hesitance to believe he’ll be the main man to fire us to the top. But I absolutely think he helps us climb the next rung on the ladder.