Liam Delap is talking about honeymoons. Not because he’s getting married, but because he believes he and Ipswich team-mate Cieran Slicker have the ‘happiest household in the UK.’

‘You know when couples are in their honeymoon stage? That’s me and him every day. We’re a lot more wholesome than people think,’ Delap tells Ipswich Town’s YouTube channel. 

Delap and Slicker, both 22, are products of Manchester City’s academy but find themselves in Suffolk. By day, they battle relegation. By night, they share a home where they play sticky golf, Slicker whips up sumptuous meals, and Delap protests as his housemate puts on clips of his best goals for the umpteenth time. 

Life might not be like this for long. Delap is Manchester United’s top striker target for the summer after smashing home 12 goals in his breakout Premier League season. He’s also on the radar of Liverpool, Chelsea, Tottenham, Newcastle, and his former overlords at Manchester City. 

Soon he will have to choose between his happy house and his career. Delap has a £40million release clause in his contract in the event that Ipswich get relegated. Which they will be, barring a miracle. 

Liam Delap is Manchester United’s top target – but he’d have to leave behind a happy life 

The striker, 22, lives with his Ipswich team-mate Cieran Slicker in the ‘happiest household in the UK’

He enjoys playing sticky golf round the house – as well as terrorising defences on the pitch 

Delap doesn’t share too much of his life on social media. His Instagram is football, football, football. Goals, goals, goals. The longest caption he’s written in the last six months is one word. ‘Team.’

What’s certain is that his profile is going to boom. He’s got 232,000 Instagram followers at the moment. More than your family put together, likely, but not United numbers. 

Rasmus Hojlund is already on 2.5m, Joshua Zirkzee 1.4m, yet they’ve only scored half the Premier League goals that Delap has this season – combined. A move to Old Trafford, with Thomas Tuchel’s England in his sights, and his personal celebrity is going to boom. Household name status potentially beckons.

In many ways this was a natural path for Delap. He’s the son of former Stoke midfielder Rory, who you might remember for his ability to throw a ball to Mars and back. 

His younger brother, Finn, plays for League One outfit Burton Albion. His sister, Neve, is also a keen athlete and netball player. Mum, Helen? A marathon runner who has completed the Three Peaks Challenge. Sport runs in Delap’s blood. 

He is all pace and power, a former sprinter and school rugby star let loose on hapless defences. The tactic in rugby was pretty much just: give it to Liam. Let him run.

It’s not a bad idea in football, too. Where Ipswich have sunk this season, he has shone. Twelve goals is a very respectable haul – not world-beating, let’s not put undue pressure on the lad – but it’s certainly one of promise, and it’s the way he plays that has scouts at the top clubs licking their lips.  

Pep Guardiola saw it in 2022. ‘He is a killer,’ said the Manchester City boss after a match against Fulham. 

Delap splashes about in the pool at Ipswich Town’s training centre. He has a £40million release clause in the event of relegation, with multiple top clubs looking at him 

He came through Man City’s academy after joining in a £1million deal from Derby (pic: 2020)

Unlike his famous father Rory, Delap has avoided making long throw-ins a feature in his game

The tight-knit family travelled to watch Rory on Soccer AM in 2014 (Delap front left, brother Finn front right)

Of course, the Manchester City boss wasn’t outing his teenage striker as a mobster. He was talking about football. ‘A typical British striker, an incredible finisher,’ Guardiola added.

‘He has a special quality. He is a different type of striker.’

The existence of Erling Haaland limited Delap to just six appearances for City, but how prescient Guardiola’s words seem now. He is not so much banging on the door of the elite as chainsawing his way through it. 

Mail Sport’s Jack Gaughan did a deep dive into the life of Delap and heard of a man who enjoys a good gag. The striker once pinched the car keys of a City kit man to take his Mini Cooper for a whizz around the training ground. 

One City kit man realised that when his Mini Cooper was being raced around the training ground, later finding that Delap had pinched the keys and taken it for a quick spin. 

One time, in Year 8, he begged to come off for a toilet break with his team losing. Whatever went on in that brief break must have been magic because he returned to score a hat-trick in the final 10 minutes.  

The potential was always there and soon he will have a chance to prove it on the grandest stages of all. The fact that United have made Delap their top target speaks volumes about how highly they think of him.

The other names on that list are Victor Osimhen (who has been prolific for seven seasons now), Viktor Gyokeres (Europe’s favourite wanted man), Hugo Ekitike, and Benjamin Sesko (both very good). 

Man City’s records have Delap scoring 47 goals in 61 games but the reality is much higher

After being displaced by Erling Haaland, Delap undertook a number of loan spells

Delap has also been a fixture in England’s Under-21 side under Lee Carsley and will be eyeing a spot in Thomas Tuchel’s rotation

In an interview with Mail Sport many moons ago, his father Rory revealed the burden of all the attention he himself was getting. 

Such was the fixation with his long throws (stemming from his javelin practice), one PR specialist wrote in and asked if he would throw a Christmas pudding over a double-decker bus.

Delap may soon know the feeling.