malg
Well-Known Member
At least Raheem Sterling has company now. Manchester City's summer business has been concentrated on footballers who have cultivated notoriety with their tactics in the transfer market, albeit in opposing ways. The £49 million winger was accused of disloyalty. Fabian Delph seems guilty of professing himself excessively loyal.
For once, a club website has become essential reading. Or, at the least, a statement posted on Aston Villa's last Saturday has. "I'm not leaving," Delph declared. "I'm staying at the football club and I can't wait for the start of the season and captaining this great football club."
Six days later, Delph had signed a five-year contract in Manchester. That great football club, which he was so proud to skipper, has to start the search for a new captain. Delph had performed one of the most staggering U-turns in even the increasingly bizarre world of Premier League football. And City, supposedly the graveyard of English talent, had signed a second member of Roy Hodgson's senior squad.
The immediate, and obvious, reaction is to conclude that Delph has made a fool of himself. So he has, and those are words that he will struggle to live down, especially on his return to Villa Park on November 7. Delve beneath the headlines and ignore the growing sense of infamy, however, and there are the more important issues. The footballing factors.
And City can celebrate his move. If they paid over the odds for Sterling, then they have got Delph on the cheap, courtesy of his £8 million release clause. They might not have secured a bargain in that price bracket in the Sheikh Mansour era or, to put it another way, since Vincent Kompany and Pablo Zabaleta arrived weeks before their 2008 takeover.
Fiscal prudence has been allied with sensible squad-building. The temptation is to suggest that Delph will be another Jack Rodwell or Scott Sinclair, a Brit consigned to the margins of a largely imported squad... but there are reasons to believe that he will not suffer the same fate. His body is more resilient than Rodwell’s and, at 25, he understands his game better. Sinclair, quite simply, was not good enough. Delph, in contrast, was one of comparatively few players to earn a regular berth in the England team when not employed at one of the elite clubs. It is a rare achievement.
He is no playmaker but he is a more penetrative passer than Fernando and, in any case, his task will be to retrieve the ball and give it to Yaya Toure, David Silva or Sterling. He offers energy, dynamism and moments of quality. He can provide a box-to-box presence, as he did for Tim Sherwood's Villa, or operate as a more defensive midfielder, as he did in Paul Lambert's side. City's probable 4-2-3-1 formation offers the scope for Delph to be deployed in either role. With James Milner and Frank Lampard gone, there was a vacancy for another specialist central midfielder, an antidote to the more attack-minded creators.
Especially as Toure is increasingly among them. The notion that Manuel Pellegrini simply picks Toure and Fernandinho in the centre of midfield is outdated. The Champions League defeat by Barcelona and the Premier League loss to Liverpool were signs that the Ivorian's lack of attention to his defensive duties can cost City in the big games. They increasingly require the insurance policy of two workhorses behind the Ivorian, a lolloping giant of a No.10. Now Delph is more of a roving tackler.
The equation should not be two from four. Especially for the tougher tests, it becomes two from three, plus a more advanced Toure. One of those three is Fernando, who excelled last August but underwhelmed in the rest of his debut season at City to become an indictment of Txiki Begiristain's recruitment record. Fernandinho had a terrific debut year but then his World Cup hangover lasted until November. He improved thereafter and this summer's Copa America exit on penalties should not be as damaging as a 7-1 thrashing by Germany but the Brazilian will be eased into the campaign. Delph should get a chance to establish himself in the side before Fernandinho is fully match-fit.
Delph need not fear the competition. He should be neither automatic choice nor outcast. He stands a greater chance of establishing himself in the City midfield than he would at Chelsea, given the presence of Nemanja Matic and Cesc Fabregas, or Manchester United, considering the spending on Morgan Schneiderlin and Bastian Schweinsteiger. City offer his best opportunity of playing a significant number of games for a title challenger. To say no would either have been, as he claimed last week, a show of loyalty to Villa or an indication of a lack of faith in his own ability.
So this should be an excellent deal for two of the three parties involved: Delph and City. But not for Villa, losing their best midfielder as well as their finest defender, Ron Vlaar, and their outstanding forward, Christian Benteke. Delph's departure will be all the crueller for the false hope he gave them. Paragon will be pariah, leader will become loathed. It is the price that he will pay for changing his mind.
