Nottingham Forest were trying to lure Chelsea’s Jake Clarke-Salter to the City Ground before Championship rivals Sunderland swooped in.
In hindsight, perhaps a relegation threatened, cash-strapped Sunderland side playing in a toxic atmosphere of disappointment and disillusion was not the ideal destination for a young centre-back looking to make his mark in the senior game.
20-year-old Jake Clarke-Salter had only made 13 league appearances in his professional career before he joined Sunderland on loan from Chelsea in the January transfer window.
And, perhaps predictably, Clarke-Salter has struggled in a testing environment. His loan spell started badly with a 4-0 defeat at Cardiff City and it has only got worse from there.
Sent off for a needless second yellow on Saturday, his dismissal paved the way for a 2-0 home defeat to Preston North End that edges the Black Cats ever closer to the third tier for the first time in half a century.
To make matters worse, this was the second game in a row in which Clarke-Salter has seen red. No wonder, then, that Sunderland fans are demanding he never plays for the club again, one supporter describing him as a ‘terrible footballer’ and another claiming that he is one of the worst defenders to don the red and white in two decades.
‘Terrible’
Nottingham Forest fans, then, can breathe a sigh of relief that Clarke-Salter did not end up at the City Ground instead.
The Mail stated in December that Forest were trying to tie up a deal to lure the former Bristol Rovers talent to the East Midlands, but it is fair to say his erratic decision making and youthful errors would not have fit into Aitor Karanka’s well drilled back line.
Forest have picked up five clean sheets in 12 games under Karanka, including in each of the last three.
Although it is tempting to wonder whether Karanka, a manager who prides himself on pragmatism, would have got the best out of his undoubtedly talented defender who appears to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.
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