Ciaran Clark admits he thought ‘a lot’ about leaving Newcastle

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Newcastle United’s Ciaran Clark is certainly in Steve Bruce’s good books.

Newcastle United defender Ciaran Clark has told The Irish Independent that he thought ‘a lot’ about leaving the club over the summer.

The Magpies beat Bournemouth 2-1 at St James’ Park on Saturday afternoon, and centre back Clark was the goal hero, bagging the winner in the second half.

Remarkably, that’s Clark’s second goal in as many games, as he also scored in the 3-2 win at West Ham United earlier this month.

Clark was brought in from the cold against Manchester United in October, with Steve Bruce handing the Irishman his first league start of the season in that 1-0 win.

Newcastle have lost just once since Bruce decided to give Clark a run in the team, and that was a narrow 1-0 defeat away at Chelsea.

The former Aston Villa man looked to be falling out of favour at Newcastle, but is now Bruce’s new favourite, having told The Chronicle that he thinks Clark has done ‘remarkably well’ in recent weeks.

Now, Clark has admitted that he thought long and hard about leaving Newcastle over the summer, but Bruce told him to wait until January and see how his situation developed.

The Sun claimed that Crystal Palace wanted Clark for £5million over the summer, meaning he could have moved on, but Clark is glad that he stayed put and fought for his place under new boss Bruce.

“It was something I thought about in the summer,” said Clark. “I didn’t know what the situation was with the manager and I thought about it a lot, the manager came late into pre-season and there wasn’t much time to do anything. He wanted a chance to look at everyone in the squad, I had a chat with him, explained my situation and how I wanted to be playing games. I had a few years of being in and out of the team, it was hit and miss and I wanted to play football.”

“He [Bruce] said to see how the first part of the season went and we’d assess it in January. He was fair with me, it was down to me to keep working hard and training and doing all I could to get back into the team and I have managed to do that,” he added.