Scouting Report: Liam Delap v Everton (H)

A tough game but an interesting outcome

Good Afternoon Ladies and Gents,

A rare non-loan army article from me today! Don’t worry that’s still coming later this week., Friday to be precise.

As most of you will know I attended the Ipswich Town v Everton game last Saturday, mainly for pleasure but off the back of a couple of conversation with The Gaffa (Si) I decided I would keep an attentive eye on Liam Delap.

Chelsea have been linked with Delap in recent weeks and as our striker search continues I thought it may be a good time to produce this report for you all, to add a little bit of context to Delap for those that haven’t had the chance to watch/ research him.

So far this season Delap averages a goal every 155 mins and he’s scored a couple of worldies within those. He is playing for relegation threatened Ipswich who’s creativity is limited. Delap has scored 4 of Ipswich’s 6 goals over performing his XG of 2.37 by a whopping 1.63+.

Saturday’s game v Everton was extremely difficult for Ipswich and to be honest they made it difficult. Everton were bang average but Ipswich made them look excellent, they moved the ball incredibly slowly, lacked any creativity or final third intelligence.

BUT, what Delap showed is something I wasn’t aware he had in his locker and that was a physical presence and ability to battle and make physical centre halves (Tarkowski & Keane) really uneasy and uncomfortable.

He had a game-long battle with Tarkowski and he more than held his own, constant challenges, shoulder barges and pressing, he dispossessed Tarkowski 5 times, whether that was winning throws/corners/free kicks or just winning the ball. He also dispossessed Keane on 4 occasions.

He made a brilliant run in the really early stages into the channel where he got the ball and pulled back a brilliant pass for Jack Clarke who quite simply cocked it up, it was almost a sitter. He had 3 shots and 3 touches in the opposition box and overall 28 touches.

There’s a long way to go before I will sit here and say Delap is the one we need to strengthen our striking department but he has shown brilliant attributes and a real ability to adapt and improve in situations.

I really like the lad and am really interested to see how he develops across the rest of this season.

Thanks for reading

Luke Rushbrook