VARTAN

🚨🎙️ Liam Delap on his altercation with Enzo Maresca after scoring twice against Manchester City in Nottingham Forest’s 3-1 victory: “People will look at what happened between me and Maresca and think it was just an argument between a player and his former manager. But for me, there was a lot more behind it. I spent time working under that man. He knows me, he knows what I can do, and he knows how much I wanted to succeed under him. That’s why facing him again, especially after everything that happened, was never going to feel like an ordinary game. When I scored my first goal, I had something to prove. I wasn’t going to pretend otherwise. I remember looking towards the touchline, and there he was. The same manager who had worked with me, watched me develop and eventually decided that I wasn’t part of his plans anymore. I thought to myself, ‘Liam, this is your moment. Let your football do the talking.’ But things became heated after my second goal. We exchanged words, and I could tell he wasn’t happy. I wasn’t particularly interested in making him happy either because I felt there were things from my time under him that I never got the opportunity to prove. I told him, ‘Mister, you know what I can do. You watched me every day in training. So don’t look surprised now.’ He responded, and we continued going back and forth. I’m not going to pretend we were having a friendly conversation because we weren’t. Both of us were frustrated, and neither wanted to back down. But there’s something else I remember. Before the game, I actually had a conversation with Nicolas Jackson. We spoke about Maresca and everything that happened when we were both at Chelsea. Jackson reminded me of how he scored twice against Maresca to help Aston Villa beat his team, and we started laughing about it. I told him, ‘Hey, Jackson, imagine how beautiful it would be if both of us could recreate that and show him just how badly he got things wrong with the way he treated us at Chelsea.’ He laughed, but we both understood what we meant. We took those experiences as motivation, and I’m sure he’s somewhere smiling right now because I know exactly what this means to him as well. But I wasn’t there to beg Maresca to believe in me anymore. I’d already moved on. When things didn’t work out, I had to accept it. That’s football. A manager makes his decisions, and a player has to decide what comes next. Now I’m at Nottingham Forest, and I’ve got an opportunity to show everybody what I’m capable of. I don’t need to spend ninety minutes arguing with my former manager. I need to score goals, help my teammates and make sure we win football matches. And if I score twice against his team, I’m going to enjoy it. Why wouldn’t I? I have respect for Maresca, but respect doesn’t mean I have to forget how disappointing that chapter was for me. At the end of the day, I scored twice, Nottingham Forest won 3-1, and Manchester City suffered another Premier League defeat. People can talk about the argument all they want. For me, the most important thing was what happened on the pitch. I didn’t come here to settle scores with one man. I came here to remind people that my story wasn’t finished. And I think I’ve made that very clear.”