Update on Delph: please be a bug

When Fabian Delph didn't appear, even on the bench, for the thrilling clash between West Ham and Aston Villa, the fans were, well, slightly freaked out. The usual sources didn't fill us in -- had he picked up a knock in the warm up, had their been a clash of tempers, what was going on? There was only one theory that could possibly fit: Roy Hodgson had "disappeared" Delph, in order to never again have to hear about how he was refusing to give the kid a look.

But it turns out that Fabian, in fact, had a "sickness bug". It was "similar to the one that kept Ciaran Clark out of the Premier League match against Tottenham Hotspur. Paul Lambert believes that the bug is "only a short term kind of thing" and something has been "going around."

Cough. Um. Do flu viruses usually wait two weeks between victims, and strike so discriminately amongst a crowd of people all interacting on a regular basis? Or is it possible that maybe, just maybe, there's a bit more to this story?

Let's hope not. Lambert said Delph didn't look well on Thursday and they sent him away on Friday, so perhaps we should take the manager at his word and not assume this was a out-all-night-clubbing situation. Delph's season has been far too good for that sort of nonsense to drag him down.