Ian Wright has urged Manchester United to make a summer swoop for Ipswich Town striker and Chelsea transfer target Liam Delap.

Delap has impressed in his first season in the Premier League, scoring nine goals in 23 appearances since arriving at Portman Road from Manchester City in the summer.

The 22-year-old’s exploits and physical characteristics have led to interest from several top clubs, with Chelsea said to be one of the clubs monitoring the striker’s situation ahead of next summer.

A return to City could also be on the cards as Pep Guardiola’s side are said to have inserted a buy-back clause in the deal that saw Delap originally move to Ipswich.

United, meanwhile, still find themselves in desperate need of a reliable goalscorer, with Ruben Amorim even resorting to deploying Kobbie Mainoo as a false nine in a disappointing 2-0 defeat to Crystal Palace in early February.

Both Rasmus Hojlund and Joshua Zirkzee have flattered to deceive since their respective moves to Old Trafford, with the pair registering just five goals combined in the league this season.

And having opted against signing another forward in January, Wright believes the club should now go all out to try and win the race for Delap’s signature in the summer.

‘Go and get Delap,’ the former Arsenal striker on the most recent episode of Wrighty’s House when addressing United’s striking woes.

‘The thing is he’s got that hunger and disrespect for everybody and it just feels like the kind of player they need.

‘They need a hero like that and he’s a hero waiting to happen. He’s hungry.’

Wright, however, was keen to stress that United’s in-possession approach must improve drastically before any striker can truly thrive in Amorim’s set-up.

‘Obviously, Zirkzee came on (against Leicester in the FA Cup) and he got one but I don’t think they put the ball in the box enough,’ Wright added.

‘I don’t think there’s anyone in the box for when the cross comes in. I don’t think they link the play or keep the ball well enough in the final third to sustain pressure on a team.

‘They lose the ball and then teams can break on them. There’s no structure to whether they are going to try to play through teams or around them.

‘So the forwards don’t know what’s coming. They don’t get the kind of service they depend on.

‘When’s the last time you saw a Man United player score a goal where he’s got across a guy at a near post? You don’t see those goals from Man United.’

Speaking earlier in the season, Delap said he was paying no attention to speculation linking him with a move away from Ipswich.

‘I don’t really look at things like that. So, yes, I’m just focused on Ipswich,’ Delap told Suffolk News in late December.

‘We are lucky to be playing in the Premier League. I think we’ve got a great opportunity here at Ipswich and we’re just trying to show our ability week in, week out, that’s a big plus for me.’

 been reported to be of great interest to the Blues, with talk throughout January linking them with a mid-season move.

However, his current club, Ipswich Town, made it clear they were desperate to keep hold of him as they look to secure their status in the Premier League.

There were reports that stated that Ipswich had asked about the availability of Carney Chukwuemeka in negotiations between the two clubs, however he completed a move to Borussia Dortmund on loan.

With Chelsea one of a host of sides interested in the English striker, it may well come down to the player’s preference of his next club.

Journalist Ben Jacobs has claimed that Delap is very intrigued by the prospect of a move to Stamford Bridge, with the opportunity to become the starting number nine clear to see.

He said to GiveMeSport’s Market Madness: “Chelsea are the frontrunners for Liam Delap, that’s the short answer. It’s going to be interesting, because naturally Ipswich could stay up and make a play to keep him, but the expectation is he will depart regardless.

“Chelsea have got a number of people, including Enzo Maresca that know Liam Delap, some of them have worked with him as well at Man City.

“Delap is quite intrigued by the Chelsea project, especially knowing that if he’s the number nine that comes in, he stands a very good chance of displacing or at least competing with Nicolas Jackson, who we must stress Chelsea do have big faith in.”

Liam Delap vs Nicolas Jackson stats

Despite it being his first season in the Premier League, Delap has taken to life in the top flight with ease.

In fact, the former Manchester City man is on the same amount of Premier League goals as Nicolas Jackson so far this season.

It is well known that Chelsea need to finally address the striker position after a number of transfer windows without signing competition for their current crop.

Jackson is going through somewhat of a dry spell at the moment, and the Blues are suffering in front of goal as a result of it.

Tottenham Hotspur manager Ange Postecoglou has decided to give first team players ‘three or four’ days off ahead of clashes with Manchester United and Ipswich Town, despite a recent rotten run of form for the north London outfit.

Spurs were dumped out of the Carabao Cup and the FA Cup in just a few days last week following defeats to Liverpool and Aston Villa. Postecoglou’s side have won just two of their last eight top flight outings and languish 14th in the top flight. Spurs will look to bounce back against Manchester United at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium on Sunday before making the trip to struggling Ipswich Town next weekend.

 

Despite the unconvincing performances against Liverpool and Aston Villa, Postecoglou has confirmed that first team stars will be given days away from training after a hectic fixture schedule. The club has been hit with an injury crisis this season, meaning that fully fit players have racked up the minutes and needed to work double time.

Tottenham Hotspur don’t have a midweek game since the turn of the year and Postecoglou confirmed that players would be allowed to recover as a result. He said: “I am just going to keep working like I have. We’ve got to give them some time off in the early part of the week.

“The boys who are coming back we have got an opportunity to give them a full week of training which is great. Come Tuesday, we should have three or four who have been missing. We can give them a full week of training rather than just throwing them in.

“By the time we get to the end of the week we will have something resembling a squad of players to prepare for a big game. That folds into the following week because again we have got seven days to prepare for the next game.

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“That gives us a good opportunity to get some work into the guys who have been out for a while and give some rest of the guys who have been going at it. By the time we get back to Europe and midweek games, we will be in much better shape.”

Following that time to recover, Tottenham Hotspur are expected to welcome back several injured players for the meeting with Manchester United. A total of five first team stars could return to face the Red Devils.

Guglielmo Vicario, Destiny Udogie, James Maddison, Brennan Johnson and Timo Werner are all pushing for a return to full training this week and Postecoglou is confident that will provide a ‘reset’ for his beleaguered side.

Speaking after defeat to Aston Villa, Postecoglou said: “Two and a half months of asking 18-year-olds and 17-year-olds and senior players, with no rest, to play Thursday, Sunday, Thursday, Sunday, Thursday, Sunday, Thursday, Sunday.

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“If you think that is not at all a factor of how this team is performing then there’s nothing else I can say. There’s nothing else I can explain.”

In other news, this is your early Tottenham Hotspur vs Manchester United team news with nine rules out and four doubtful.

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I’ve really enjoyed the FA Cup this year. Town have been decent and all of a sudden with Arsenal, Chelsea and Liverpool all out of the competition, I’m perhaps rather foolishly thinking, hang on – we could have a decent run here.

I saw a question on social media which asked fans if they’d rather stay up or win the FA Cup?

For me, there is only one answer there and it’s the latter.

Football is so commercialised these days and sometimes I think we forget as fans exactly why we fell in love with our club in the first place.

Can you imagine seeing Town lift a major trophy? I know fans of a certain age before us have done it.

They probably got used to it during the glory years of Ramsey and Robson, but to see the Tractor Boys win something major in my lifetime would be an absolute dream.

Back to league action now though and a trip to Villa Park. This will be tough, they all are.

I am worried about the resurgent Aston Villa off the back of a very decent transfer window. We’ll do well to get a point there but if we play anything like we did in the reverse fixture, we’ll certainly have a chance.

After that it’s Tottenham Hotspur and Manchester United. Two games before the season, you may have winced at back-to-back, but now it’s two fixtures I’m looking at as a huge chance for us to get points in.

Who knows what’s going on with Tottenham? I’m not sure Ange himself does.

In their current state, we have to be seeing that as a game at Portman Road we’ve got to go and win.

It’s a similar story for Manchester United who still look all over the place. There’s another chance there.

I said after Southampton, if Town are to stay up then we have to start winning the games against those around us and begin to pick up a few shock results along the way.