He'd be an excellent Haaland backup, if we had brought him back in the summer to do that role instead of selling him, they'd be no issues, a young striker biding his time happy to get whatever minutes he can and make an impression.
Now that he's had a taste of first team football in the premier league and is excelling though, it's a lot harder to accept a role as the backup here. He's playing every week at ipswich and doing well, why is he going to want to end that halfway through a season to stall his progress and play very little for us?
This does lead to a wider problem with us selling academy players that needs to be looked at. If they do well, other, better teams show interest. we might also show interest in bringing them back to bolster the squad, but why would they want to come back here and be a bit part when they're getting regular football at a good level and could get it at a better level elsewhere? The buyback clauses are only really useful for us if we see a palmer-like rise where they could slot straight into our starting 11. Got to find a way of benefitting more from a Delap or a Lavia or Rogers standard of player. Adding £10-15m to the coffers for these players isn't to be sniffed at but it does feel like we're being fleeced a bit when they're moving elsewhere up the ladder and then seeing their values skyrocket and we get nothing.
Back to Delap, He can just wait until the summer and have arguably more options then and in the meantime continue to play every week and improve. If they go down, they'll be plenty of premier league sides interested in taking him, potentially ourselves included but also more established sides than ipswich willing to make him their first choice striker which you have to imagine would be a more attractive offer than being haslands backup. There would be no benefit for him to want a move here mid season.