Tony Pulis has advised Liam Delap to think carefully as Arsenal are among the Premier League clubs reportedly poised to trigger a relegation release clause.
Delap, the 22-year-old son of Stoke legend Rory, has caught the eye in a struggling Ipswich Town team during his first season of playing regular Premier League football. He had been a hot prospect coming through the ranks at Derby and Manchester City but had tough loans at Stoke and Preston before showing his potential at Hull.
Ipswich are heading back to the Championship but Delap is said to have a £30 million release clause in his contract in that scenario and there will be plenty of takers at that price.
It was claimed this week that Arsenal are one of them, apparently moving their focus away from RB Leipzig's Benjamin Sesko to eye up Mark Robins' old boy Viktor Gyokeres and Delap, whose 12 goals this term have propelled him into the England conversatoin.
“Liam was a mascot at Stoke for one game I can remember and I've met him,” said Pulis via the East Anglian Daily Times. “I've been to the house a couple of times and met him. They're a lovely family.
"Liam's got that determination and that will to win, and he gets that from his mother, not his father. Helen would be pleased with that. But no, no, he's done fantastic.
“It'll be interesting to see which club he picks. That'll be so, so important. I'm sure he'll talk to mum and dad about that.
"He struck a light at Ipswich and has shown people that he's always in between the posts. If there's balls coming into the box, good strikers are always between those goal posts and he gets there. And when he's there, he's such a strong lad and his technique is good. He can finish first time or have two touches, his feet are quick enough. I wouldn't like to mark him because he's non-stop. He's a real handful.
“He's still a very, very young lad and he's playing in the hardest position on the football field. So you've got to be careful with him. But like I say, he's been brought up properly.
"Mum and dad are fantastic people and he's very grounded. I just think that the next move is really important unless he wants to stay with Ipswich and have another season playing in the Championship and help them get back into the Premier League.”
Delap would not be short of advice from Stoke supporters if he got a phone call from Arsenal, with the most diplomatic probably being to throw the phone as far away as possible. There is no love lost for the Gunners, whose old manager Arsene Wenger had a bee in his beret about Delap Sr and Stoke.
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