OPINION
Manchester City are surely cutting their nose off to spite their face over Fabian Delph when you consider that Leeds United are reportedly willing to take him off their hands.
The Sun report that Man City have slapped a £15million price tag on the 29-year-old midfielder and have effectively priced Leeds out of the market as a result.
The national newspaper claim that the Whites have shown initial interest in reuniting with Delph with the midfielder being keen to move on and only having a year left on his deal.
The Sun claim there are a number of Premier League sides keen on signing Delph but make no mention of whether his price tag scares them off as well.
Given that there’s no guarantee these unnamed Premier League sides will be keen to splash out £15million, surely Man City have made an error to price Delph so high when it stops the likes of Leeds having any chance of signing him.
Delph only managed to make 11 appearances in the Premier League in his 2018/19 campaign, so is hardly coming off a stellar season.
In fact the midfielder featured so little for Pep Guardiola’s side, England have recently called him up early, according to the Guardian, in order to check out his fitness and form for themselves.
While injury wasn’t the main reason keeping Delph from featuring for Man City in the recently ended season, it’s also worth noting that asking £15million for a 29-year-old with a chequered injury record would scare most teams off.
Delph has had numerous injury problems over the last few seasons, just look at the fact he missed 25 games for Man City in the 2016/17 season due to a muscle injury (Source: Transfermarkt).
Also aside from Delph’s shortcomings given that The Sun claim Delph wants to move on and his current £90,000-a-week contract (Source: Spotrac) expires in 2020, Man City aren’t in a position to demand over-the-top for the midfielder.
The Premier League club don’t want to be stuck paying his monster wages for another season after all, especially if he could walk out for free once the 2019/20 campaign is done.
So with that in mind, surely by setting their expectations for Delph’s price too high for Leeds is something they could end up regretting.
The Whites would no doubt be open to paying a decent fee for the 29-year-old, given they’ve already made their interest clear based on The Sun’s report and based on the fact they’ll be looking to boost their squad to help their promotion chances next season.
Also given that Delph previously played 58 times for Leeds, he may be more willing to help a move go through by taking a cut on his huge wage that is surely a deal breaker for most.