Sam Clucas won’t make it into many Fantasy Football teams this season but he is arguably Hull’s best chance of avoiding relegation.
When locking horns with Jurgen Klopp’s hard-running, position-swapping, gegenpressers, you need a player blessed with remarkable energy, an insatiable desire to scrap for possession and the composure to distribute it effectively and sensibly when subjected to intense pressure.
Luckily for Hull City, they have exactly the right man for the job.
Plying his trade in League One with Chesterfield Town just two years ago, not even the most esteemed pundit would have predicted that Sam Clucas would survive, let alone thrive, against Danny Drinkwater, Gylfi Sigurdsson and Paul Pogba in the top tier. Certainly not for a newly-promoted club entering the campaign in the midst of a crisis.
Yet the 25-year-old is quickly becoming one of the season’s surprise packages. His tenacious work-rate and intelligent link play provided the platform for surprise victories against Swansea and champions Leicester before pushing the world’s most expensive footballer to the periphery in a narrow defeat by Manchester United.
Averaging 4.2 tackles and 2.4 interceptions per game according to WhoScored, the fact that comparisons with N’Golo Kante are not exactly wide of the mark is testament to a player who has made a mockery of pre-season predictions. Like his team, you may argue.
Therefore, ahead of a daunting trip to Anfield on Saturday, Clucas will need to be at his unrelenting best in the face of Liverpool’s high-octane attacking carousel.
With Philippe Coutinho, Roberto Firmino, Daniel Sturridge and Adam Lallana swapping positions at will, Klopp’s side represent Hull’s toughest test of the season so far.
Though, as Clucas himself told the Express at the start of the season: “Everyone is writing us off. I’ve seen pundits saying we’ve got no chance after what’s happened but it’s become a motivational tool for us.”
If there’s one thing this tigerish 25-year-old has in abundance, its motivation.
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