What happened to Jack Clarke at Tottenham Hotspur?
That’s the £10 million question.
Spurs spent relatively big money on signing the York-born winger from Leeds United during the summer of 2019.
But fast forward three years and Clarke – now 21 – still hasn’t made a Premier League debut for Tottenham.
And it looks like he never will.
According to The Northern Echo, the Lilywhites are in talks with Sunderland about selling the youngster to the newly-promoted Championship outfit.
Clarke spent the second half of last season on loan at the Stadium of Light and impressed Alex Neil enough to warrant the Sunderland boss wanting him on a permanent basis, it seems.
The report has added that the player himself ‘would be interested’ in a return to Wearside next season.
With Tottenham adding Ivan Perisic to their ranks this summer, and another wide player likely to follow, it seems Antonio Conte has zero intention of using him in the future.
It’ll be a disappointing ending to his Spurs adventure, which never really got going.
Clarke hasn’t played a minute of Premier League football under any of the four Spurs managers he’s experienced – Mauricio Pochettino, Jose Mourinho, Nuno Espirito Santo and Conte – and his loan in January was his fourth temporary spell away from North London.
No matter how many times he returns, Clarke, who has less than 100 competitive minutes for the Lilywhites under his belt, never looks any closer to breaking into the senior set-up on a regular basis and a departure is definitely the best for all parties at this stage.
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