Remember Jack Clarke? Tottenham Hotspur signed the promising attacking midfielder for a then-eye popping €10m from Leeds United back in 2019 when he was 18 and he was tipped for big things at Spurs, but he never quite panned out. Spurs initially loaned him back to Leeds but he was on the outside as Leeds had eclipsed their maximum number of loans so he barely played at all and was recalled midway through the season. He later had loans at QPR and Stoke City before heading on loan to Sunderland in 2021-22, and he joined the Black Cats permanently the following summer.
You can argue that Spurs abjectly failed with Clarke’s development while at the club, and it’s hard to argue against that point. Clarke has certainly blossomed while at Sunderland, to the point where he’s now close to finalizing a lucrative £20m transfer to newly-promoted Ipswich Town.
So why are we talking about a player who hasn’t been at Spurs for two seasons and who only made one senior appearance? Because the one smart thing Spurs did when they sold him to Sunderland was include a 25% sell-on clause in exchange for a lower transfer fee. That means Spurs are due a £5m windfall when Clarke finalizes his transfer to Ipswich.
£5m isn’t a lot, but consider it’s most of what Spurs initially paid for Clarke back in 2019, so that makes it a pretty great deal all in all. You can argue that it might have been better to stick with Clarke and then we’d actually have a decent young player on our hands right now instead of £5m and a small loss on the books, but hey, this is better than a poke in the nose.
I guess if nothing else we’ll get a good look at Clarke in the Premier League to see if, now that he’s 23 years old, he’s got the goods. Then we can decide whether we want to cry in our beers over how we let his young career stagnate while he was at Spurs. The £5m is still nice, though.