He is reliving taking on his younger brother, Finn, in the garden. These days, they are each other’s biggest supporters – Liam attended Finn’s victory for third-tier Burton on Wednesday – but as kids there was a friendly rivalry. The elder brother says: “There were probably a lot of tears, a lot of fights … whether it was playing Monopoly or football, it always ended in either the table being flipped or kicking the shit out of each other.” It is a competitive streak that has stuck and Delap is determined to make his presence felt at Forest, for whom he could make his full debut against Tottenham on Saturday.
It has been a testing 16 months; he left Chelsea a season into a six-year contract and after one goal in 28 top-flight appearances, a dozen of those starts. I even at times probably think I’ve been in football a lot longer than I have. I’ve still, hopefully, got a long career ahead.
My first loans to Stoke and Preston [from Manchester City, across 2022-23] didn’t really go well at all and it was probably one of the best things that happened because I learnt so much from that season and went to Hull [for 2023-24] and kicked on from there. I’m still young, I’ve still got a lot of learning to do. Sometimes injuries happen, sometimes you don’t play.
I don’t think anything is lost … Everyone has rocky moments. I’ve just got to use them to learn and kick on.” Last summer, Delap was hot property. Oliver Glasner tells a story of Delap having proposals from 18 Premier League clubs and jests that the 23-year-old knows every top-flight manager owing to the various Zoom calls he held while deciding his next move.
After all, one of those was with Glasner, then at Crystal Palace. Forest wanted him then, too. That definitely stuck in my mind.” Glasner wants Delap to play to his strengths: physicality, power and finishing.
He doesn’t mean the forward’s hidden talent: cube roots. At the start of the year a clip of Delap showing off his maths skills went viral. One of my friends taught me in school how to do it and I didn’t forget it.
Extract — continue reading at the source.
