Soccer Football - Championship - Nottingham Forest v Leeds United - The City Ground, Nottingham, Britain - January 1, 2019 Leeds' Jack Clarke celebrates after he scores the first goal Action Images/Paul Childs EDITORIAL USE ONLY. No use with unauthorized audio, video, data, fixture lists, club/league logos or "live" services. Online in-match use limited to 75 images, no video emulation. No use in betting, games or single club/league/player publications. Please contact your account representative for further details.
Tottenham are chasing Championship gem Jack Clarke but surely he isn’t what the club need right now.
As per Leeds-Live, the Champions League runners up have been interested in the Leeds United youngster for some time now, with scouting missions apparently conducted throughout the entirety of the season.
However, for all his obvious potential, we can’t help but feel this is a peculiar one. You’d have imagined that, in the wake of a relatively disappointing domestic season, Spurs would be chasing established players.
Individuals they know would make an immediate impact in central midfield, for example. As it stands, it’s not hard to imagine the club without Christian Eriksen next season after he announced his intention to leave the club in search of new challenges. That leaves behind Moussa Sissoko, Victor Wanyama, Eric Dier and Harry Winks, which is hardly a line-up that boasts the necessary panache to thrust Spurs towards new levels of greatness; especially considering they only have five Premier League goals and three assists between them.
Also, it doesn’t help that Clarke’s preferred position is already fairly saturated. The natural right sided winger would be competing with the likes of Lucas Moura, Erik Lamela and Son Heung-min for a starting berth. And as great as Clarke might grow to be, all of the above are arguably better options at this stage in their respective careers, given the experience at the top level of European football they have to offer (Ligue 1, Serie A and Bundesliga, respectively).
Mauricio Pochettino has previously spoken about the club needing to take a new direction, so moving for a Championship winger with relatively little experience (Transfermarkt total his first-team minutes up at just 894 over the last two seasons) doesn’t seem, well, ambitious enough.
Tottenham have previously championed the signing of young talents to mould into elite performers – Dele Alli being the best example of this – and, though it’s hard to deny Clarke would be a decent signing on that front, buying players closer to the finished article is arguably what the club must do now. After all, Harry Kane spoke only recently of the club’s best ever team needing to win trophies, as per Goal.
One for the future. But the future isn’t now, and with silverware the immediate goal maybe it’s best to look elsewhere.
Spurs fans, do you think you should be signing for the future? What kind of player would you like to recruit? Let us know in the comments below…
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