Once upon a time being compared to Michael Owen would have been considered a good thing.  These days, not so much.  Nevertheless, Dmitri Sychev, due to his pace, has apparently earned the comparison in his native Russia where he has also been called “the most sensational young Russian forward since Vladimir Beschastnykh” and is now being linked to Aston Villa.

Who knows how much truth is in this story, and it’s not my usual cup of tea to address baseless speculation like this, but as long as we’re struggling so badly for goals there will be plenty more where this came from. I’ll just be interested to see whether this one pops its head up in England or not, I don’t think it has so far, although I may have missed it.

The report comes out of France, where Sychev spent a couple of seasons with Marseille in his younger days, and they’re apparently as fond of their sourceless, quoteless stories as the British media. Still, they seemed to have first sniff of Habib Beye’s mooted switch to Sunderland which did seem like it may have been on the cards for a while, so who knows.

Although his spell in France didn’t return a massive haul of goals, he was only 19 or 20 at the time. Since then, back in Mother Russia, especially in the last few seasons, he’s managed to score a goal every 2.6 games on average. During the same period, John Carew’s record is roughly one every 2.9 and Gabby scored one every 3.3 games. Slightly better obviously, but would that translate to the Premier League?

Fabian Delph

Speaking of making the move to the Premiership, Fabian Delph is fast becoming something of an enigma for me. He grabbed a lot of headlines between the Man Utd and Crystal Palace games and while I didn’t read many of the actual articles, the flavour I got was that MON was confirming that he is something of a prodigious talent, but with a lot to learn. A classic rough diamond if you like and I’d agree with that assessment.

He impressed in the summer, just days after his £8m move from Leeds, in the friendly against Fiorentina, playing 78 minutes. Apparently he had impressed enough to be handed a start in the opening game of the season, the 2-0 home loss to Wigan, a game he and, for that matter, the rest of us would like to forget as soon as possible. I seem to recall suggesting at the time that it may have been more prudent for him to play as one of three in the centre, rather than making up 50% of the partnership with Stiliyan Petrov, but that’s easy to do with hindsight.

Since then, he’s found a starting place hard to come by and it could be argued didn’t make the absolute best of the limited opportunities he did get. However, there’s no disgrace in a 20 year old ex-League One player being unable to force his way past the likes of James Milner or Ashley Young into the thoughts of a manager who is as far away from earning the “Tinkerman” nickname as any boss in the Premiership.

We’ve all seen, in glimpses at least, that this lad can play a bit. Perhaps it’s just me, but there aren’t too many clubs that have the resources to spend £8m investing in a player who will start to fulfill his promise in a season or two. Considering our record transfer fee paid out, prior to Ashley Young arriving, was the £9.5m spent on acquiring a certain Colombian’s services, it possibly makes sense to think of eight large in more immediate terms.

Not that I would encourage anyone to hold the transfer fee over a player’s head when assessing their performances by the way. A player is worth whatever we’re willing to pay for him, he has absolutely nothing to do with that price and shouldn’t be judged by it.

Nevertheless, I don’t think I was alone in being absolutely thrilled with Delph’s performance against Man Utd recently, he really did look excellent. I speculated that perhaps he is just more settled now, maybe it was a case of playing in what might be described as a central holding pair of a 5 man midfield, it could be down to any number of reasons, but he gave his best performance of the season against potential champions. Impressive indeed and worthy of being singled out and put up against Petrov as I did in the Statshack.

Delph kept his place in the next game, the FA Cup tie with Crystal Palace, and apparently had the same role alongside Petrov, behind Milner, Ash and Stewart Downing. As it was an FA Cup game, I don’t have access to the data I use for Premiership Statshacks, but I have looked at Delph’s individual statistics and he wouldn’t thank me for putting them up against Petrov this time.

It’s fair to say that aside from one sublime through ball to Milner and a rather rash tackle later on that rightly earned him a booking, he pretty much went missing during the last game and therein lies the enigma that is Fabian Delph. How can a young, eager footballer play so well against the likes of Man Utd, yet disappear against Championship opposition?

As MON has said many times, he’s going to be a “proper player” for us, of that there is little doubt. If I were in any position to offer him advice it would simply be to calm down a little and stop trying so hard. I think MON is also right when he’s said that Delph will be able to make a contribution as we head towards the finish line this season, but it’s really next season that we can expect to see him starting to show what he’s got.

Still, you’ve got to love his attitude. No one could call this lad lazy, that’s for sure!! Sometimes I find myself thinking of him as a young Patrick Vieira, perhaps because of his deceptively slight appearance, and I’m sure he would mind emulating the Frenchman’s career, but in the end I think he’s going to be unique enough to be his own player.

The English Fabian Delph.