Manchester City’s Delph on the Shelf: Fabian withdraws from England
When the England squad was announced, a lot of people were surprised of the inclusion of Fabian Delph. To be fair, I was also surprised, but probably not in quite the same way as others.
It has been quite a turnaround for the Englishman in the past two weeks, going from surplus to requirements at City to featuring in the last three of the last four games.
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You have to applaud his desire to stay and fight for a place at club level, even if it meant playing slightly unorthodox position. He could have followed as many have done at City and other clubs, just take the paycheck and bide your time. He didn’t, he offered Pep a solution to a problem and, as such, is now in contention for starts.
For that reason alone I thought Delph deserved a call up. I thought maybe it was a bit soon, considering he’d only played a couple of games this season. But he certainly put the option in Gareth Southgate’s head that maybe he could be used in a variety of positions.
Delph hasn’t appeared for the Three Lions since a November fixture against Spain, back in 2015. That final appearance, to date, came just over a year since his first cap and I was excited to see if he’d get a run out this time.
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Now he is returning to Manchester with a muscle injury and his International return will have to wait. From a Manchester City point of view you just have to hope it isn’t too bad and he will be available for our next game.
From being shopped around to other clubs, it now looks likely he will get more chances to impress. City will still, no doubt, are looking for replacement left backs to try to get in January. Delph has a little under three months in contention for the role. Could he secure a new contract for City? I think it certainly is more of a possibility now than it was even 90 days ago.