Fabian Delph on the speech that went viral and why he is glad he turned down Stoke
He can laugh about it now and, in reality, he is teased about it so often by his Manchester City team-mates that he does not have much choice but to see the funny side. Indeed, there were few more unintentionally amusing moments in the recent Amazon documentary, All or
Nothing, than the sight of Fabian Delph lecturing City’s dressing room on “the basics of football” in his thick Yorkshire accent after their shock 3-2 derby defeat by Manchester United in April.
“The guys always come up to me now and say, ‘Oh, the basics!’” Delph says, chuckling at the recollection of a moment that caused much mirth on social media. “Raheem [Sterling], Vincent [Kompany], a lot of the lads. I never hear the end of it – and I probably never will, to be honest. And, obviously, with my strong Yorkshire accent, it’s even funnier to them.”
Two-nil up at half-time and seemingly coasting, City shipped three goals in 16 second-half minutes and were ultimately denied the chance of being crowned Premier League champions at home by their bitter local rivals. It merely delayed the inevitable, with Pep Guardiola’s relentless machine confirmed as title winners a week later en route to amassing an unprecedented 100 points, a pace that has not relented this season as the league leaders go into tomorrow’s game at Chelsea unbeaten and still the side everyone else has to catch.
But, all the same, the United defeat was a bitter pill to swallow, none more so than for Delph, who was in no doubt about where they had gone wrong and dismissive of Yaya Toure’s suggestion that fatigue was a factor.
“I wear my heart on my sleeve and I am known for getting a little emotional at times,” Delph says. “The point I was making was that the fundamentals – the basics – almost went out of the window: the work ethic, the closing down, the competing. Sometimes, when you stare adversity in the face, you’ve got to go back to those basic principles of football and do them right. For me, with the upbringing I had at Leeds, everything was about ensuring that happened. And it was an emotional moment for me.”
That upbringing at Leeds United, from the age of 11 to 19 before his move to Aston Villa, certainly went a long way to shaping the Delph we see now.
They had a motto at Elland Road – “Hard work beats talent when talent doesn’t work hard” – and it is a mantra that Delph continues to cherish and one that would chime with Guardiola, who, for all the talent at his disposal at City, is intolerant of any drop in work rate.
Delph is often held up as a shining example of Guardiola’s coaching prowess, given the central midfielder’s swift transition into a left-back last season after a cruciate injury to Benjamin Mendy robbed City of the world’s most expensive full-back just six weeks into the campaign.
Another serious knee injury to Mendy this term has again opened the door to Delph at left-back but his development is down to much more than just Guardiola’s acumen and foresight and it is actually only now that the England international says he is being schooled in the finer arts of playing such a key position in City’s perfectly synchronised system. For that, Guardiola’s assistant, Mikel Arteta, and captain Kompany have been just as important.
“Last season, it was pretty much learning on the job,” Delph explains. “I had little tips about what to do and what not to but I’m learning more as a left-back now, strangely.
“Mikel Arteta has been different class with me. He’s walked me through so many different scenarios and situations. It’s about having them drilled into your head, making it second nature – not having to think so much about your body shape, how and when you run in behind, trying to play someone offside when you shouldn’t. All the little details. Take clearing the ball ...”
Of his own choosing, Delph brings up his error against Lyon in the 2-1 Champions League loss in September, when he misjudged a clearance from a cross, enabling Maxwel Cornet to score. “I got my mind muddled up. I went to clear it, ended up making a misery of it and paid the price, but I’ve not been in that situation too many times,” he says.
‘Sometimes, when you stare adversity in the face, you have got to go back to those principles and do them right’
“Vinny has been great with me. I’ve never met a defender that is obsessed with defending quite like he is. When we’re working on our set-pieces, a lot of defenders I’ve played with are a bit like, ‘Unhhh’, whereas with Vincent, it’s the complete opposite. He loves it. I’m very close with him, so, when I started to play at left-back, I began to pick up a lot from him.”
It is actually easy to forget now but, in different circumstances, Delph could have played no part in what City have gone on to achieve. He made just two league starts in Guardiola’s first season and had an offer to leave for Stoke the following summer. His decision to stay and fight for a place raised plenty of eyebrows but Delph had sat down with his wife, Natalie, and two close friends and drawn up a spreadsheet listing all the pros and cons of a transfer before debating what to do.
“We probably had an hour’s conversation and it didn’t sit right with me that I wouldn’t give it that one last chance,” he says. “I’ve always believed that if you work hard, you will get your rewards, so we decided we would give it another go and eventually, when the opportunity did come, make sure I was 100 per cent ready to take it.”
It was a sliding-doors moment. As driven as he is down to earth, Delph is so upbeat that he is convinced he would have made the best of any move but he recognises that there are degrees of success and missing out on the heights City scaled would have been galling in the extreme.
“Obviously, it would have been a massive disappointment if I’d left at that time because I knew what the club was going to go on to do,” he says. “It was scary to see. I was looking at these guys, thinking, ‘Wow, what you could go on to be in the next two, three years’, and I wanted to be part of that. To give it up would have been very difficult and I’m glad I never did.”
So, how much better can City get? “I feel like if we stay in the mindset where we take each game as it comes, then there’s a good chance we could rack up the same amount of points that we did last season,” he says. “Last season was a strange one because, without wishing to sound arrogant, I thought we were going to win every trophy. It just felt like it was going to happen. It was a great feeling to have and it will be no different this season.”
Delph, 29, has just over 18 months left on his existing contract. There is no new deal on the table, at least not yet, but he is relaxed about the future. “They will get nothing but 100 per cent from me for the next 18 months and that’s where I am, to be honest,” he says.
Fabian Delph, straight talking as always.