The former shelf-stacker, who has been a key member of this season’s underachieving team, has pinpointed defensive errors for undermining an assault on the European qualifying places. "It's hard to put a finger on why we're making mistakes defensively,” somehow incognisant of his and Jlloyd Samuel’s performance in the 2-1 defeat by Manchester City on Saturday, “but as we've done it quite a bit recently then we're not really learning either.
"We are going to be criticised but we have to take it on the chin, but if we don't start learning from this we're going to be in the same situation next season," the 28-year-old continued, clearly not learning. Delaney was influentially bad in Saturday’s defeat and admitted his own second-half performance was ‘pretty shocking’, before a man rushed to his side brandishing a pocket watch and told him he was beautiful and nothing was his fault.
"We put a lot of pressure on ourselves in the last three games to try and win a UEFA Cup spot, but the lost points at home have cost us," he added. "We are a small squad but, as a team, we are good enough to be challenging for Europe. It's just that we've let ourselves down in the last three or four games and that's because we've not been as strong at the back as we would like to have been."