Jake Clarke-Salter was on loan at Sunderland as the Black Cats were relegated from the Championship, but now Fulham and Burnley want him.
Jake Clarke-Salter arrived at Sunderland on loan from Chelsea in January with a burgeoning reputation as one of the most exciting defensive prospects in English football.
Though, in hindsight, perhaps a crisis-ridden club heading towards a second successive relegation wasn’t the right place for an inexperienced, 21-year-old defender to hone his trade. Clarke-Salter really struggled to fight against the tide at Sunderland with a 4-0 battering at Cardiff City on his debut a sign of things to come.
The England U21 international was even sent off in successive games against Middlesbrough and Preston North End. And, speaking to The Guardian, Clarke-Salter has now opened up about his ‘tough’ time on Wearside.
“It was tough, I was 20 years old and obviously I had to deal with the responsibility because they were my mistakes,” said the England U20 World Cup winner.
“The first sending-off was a derby game (against Middlesbrough) and I made a badly timed tackle. The second one (versus Preston) was just a bit of inexperience on my side. I’d just come back into the team, so I was gutted.
“But I’ve learned from it.”
Learn from it he has. Clarke-Salter left Chelsea on loan again this summer and is following in Mason Mount’s footsteps at Vitesse Arnhem.
The centre-back has impressed in his eight Eredivisie appearances and, as a result, HITC sources are telling us that Fulham, Burnley, Bayer Leverkusen and Borussia Dortmund are all interested.
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