Easy being hard on Clarke. Maybe if we’d had our wages increased ten fold at 19 years of age, we might have struggled to perform at times. Not saying it’s only reason
He will have to show better performance levels soon otherwise his loan spell with us will affect the rest of his career. With Leeds there have been no learning curves or acclimatisation to be done so there are few excuses.
Wore what sort of contract he got with spurs. Obably 40k a week for five years or something daft. He’ll never play a pl game for them in my opinion
Last year he looked like the pick of the U23s and during some games I did think he would go on to play in the PL, hopefully with us. Now if you put him with the other U23s we have I do not think he would stand out as being better, or as good as the best. This, I think, is mainly down to him going backwards but right now if we can only name 5 loanees in the squad I wouldn't be using one of these on him.
Sadly I have to agree Eric. The problem for Jack is that he now has to live up to his price tag straight away wherever he is, or be judged as a flop. If he doesn't step up at Leeds and goes back to Spurs under a cloud, his next loan move could destroy his career at the age of 19/20. That's the reality of money in football nowadays. I'm not sure he has the quality in depth though - If Spurs bought on the strength of a few brilliant cameos it may have been good business for Leeds to take the money when the hype was at it's height. For his sake, I hope he proves me wrong .
Clarke’s regression is proof that we shouldn’t have the ridiculously high expectations of the U23’s. It’s bee going on for years back as far as Delph predicting they would be huge. Truth is, as others have pointed out, is there’s a massive gulf when stepping up to the senior setup. Far more don’t make it than succeed, just look at the numbers we’ve shipped out this summer
I for one never had a very high expectation of Clarke. Hopes, yes, but expectation, no. He did make the leap up to the 1st team - but only on occasion. It was the leap from sub to starter that was insurmountable to him. And still is. He may still be at the 'occasional' 1st team stage, but there's little or no evidence of this. The guy obviously has talent, which makes me think it's his head that needs sorting. And sorting it is what Bielsa is doing. Just don't know if this has sunk in with Clarke yet, though.
£10m is nothing to them. £10m is a massive player in the Championship. £10m is bugger all in the PL. It's like us paying £100k for young Spanish lads in the hope that we'll land lucky. Well, with some of them
Danny Rose took 8 years to establish himself with the spurs 1st team, they won't panic just yet, I'm sure.
