Unai Emery acknowledged Aston Villa’s 2-2 draw at Ipswich was a fair result, but had hoped they would end the day joint-top of the Premier League.
Villa looked set to warm up for Wednesday’s visit of Bayern Munich in the Champions League with another comeback victory after first-half efforts by Morgan Rogers and Ollie Watkins cancelled out Delap’s opener.
Kieran McKenna’s newly-promoted team had other ideas with Delap’s superb 72nd-minute solo effort enough to ensure the spoils were shared at Portman Road.
It denied Villa the chance to go level on points with Liverpool at the summit, but Emery gave his team some leeway.
He said: “I think the result was fair and even we could lose the match at the end.
“I am not accepting the result, the point in my idea how I want to raise our level and our demands, but I accept it in our process.
“Overall we have 13 points, but we were optimistic about the possibility to be with Liverpool with 15 points.
“We can accept how difficult it is in this league to play against teams like Ipswich. After they are promoted, they are excited, they are motivated and they are playing with confidence.
“This is the difficulty we face in 90 minutes, but the first half we played even better than I planned before in stopping their game-plan, in stopping their capacity to push us.
“But in the second half, they play like I was planning in the first half. In this moment of course we needed to be stronger than we were.”
Emery had banned talk of Villa’s midweek clash with Bayern – a repeat of the club’s successful 1982 European Cup final – in the build-up to Sunday’s clash.
Quizzed about the Bundesliga giants being able to have 24 hours extra preparation, the Spaniard bristled at suggestions his players would be physically drained after an exhilarating draw in Suffolk.
“We are going to suspend the match on Wednesday,” Emery joked.
“What do we want? We want to play in Europe? We want to play matches on Sunday and Wednesday? We want to try to get to the same level they have on other teams like (Manchester) City, Arsenal, Liverpool, Manchester United, Newcastle, Tottenham? We want it.
“If we don’t want? OK, we are not playing in Europe and we are resting all the week. Fantastic for everybody, but it is the challenge we have; the players, myself, the supporters, even the journalist!
“We are going to be tired, but this is the level.”
Kieran McKenna watched Ipswich take the lead in the eighth minute when full debutant Jack Clarke cut back for Delap to fire in the opener.
Villa responded after 15 minutes when Jacob Greaves’ poor clearance was controlled by Rogers, who exchanged passes with Watkins and slammed home.
It was 2-1 in the 32nd minute when Leon Bailey produced a wonderful delivery for Watkins to head in, but Ipswich responded with Emi Martinez forced to deny Kalvin Phillips and Delap before the latter levelled in the second half.
Delap collected Omari Hutchinson’s pass by the halfway and raced past Diego Carlos before he drilled into the bottom corner to earn newly promoted Town a fourth consecutive draw.
“I thought it was a really good game,” McKenna reflected.
“We’re a team that is building and rebuilding, so to be as competitive as we were (against Aston Villa) is a big, big positive.
“Another point, another game unbeaten and we move on.”
On two-goal hero Delap, McKenna added: “A good day for him and he should be proud. I am sure his family are proud.”
