There’s something about Jack Clarke.
There’s something about the ease with which he receives the ball in tight, contested spaces, glides free, slides possession to a team-mate and keeps Sunderland moving: it appears effortless and is aesthetically appealing. There’s something in this fluency — his natural ability combined with increasing experience and a growing awareness of his role — which means, on form, Clarke looks the sort of player a Premier League club would spend £15million-£20m ($18.7m-$25m) on.
Advertisement
Such speculation may seem premature — Sunderland are about to face Luton Town in a Championship play-off semi-final and could be in the Premier League themselves again by the end of the month.
But it is relevant because Clarke has been bought by a major Premier League club already in his career. In July 2019, when he was 18 and at Leeds United in the Championship, Tottenham Hotspur paid £10million for him.
It was a big deal for all concerned: Tottenham had just been in the Champions League final against Liverpool and they had not bought a player for 18 months. Clarke was next-generation Spurs; the club’s hashtag of the moment was #HiJack.
Three years later, Tottenham sold Clarke to Sunderland last summer for less than a tenth of that fee. Sent on loans, first back to Leeds, then to QPR and Stoke City before arriving at Sunderland last January — when they were labouring in League One — Clarke was shuffled around as Mauricio Pochettino, Jose Mourinho, Nuno Espirito Santo and Antonio Conte occupied the Spurs dugout.
Of that quartet, only Mourinho engaged with Clarke and gradually his £10million transfer was deemed an error. Yet Clarke’s talent remained obvious. He recovered at Sunderland, found purpose under Alex Neil, won a Wembley play-off and this season has blossomed under Tony Mowbray.
Sunderland have been one of the stories of the English season — their style and grit amid a catalogue of injuries winning them praise — and no outfield player has appeared more than Clarke.
Of 46 Championship games, he has started 44 and been a used substitute in one. The game he missed was due to suspension. On the opening day against Coventry City — Sunderland’s first in the second tier after four years in League One — Clarke scored the club’s first goal of the season; on Monday at Preston, in a must-win game that Sunderland won, he scored the last. For now.
Advertisement
Mowbray frequently eulogises Patrick Roberts and Manchester United loanee Amad Diallo, but there is a compliment to Clarke every game on the team sheet.
He is now 22, hardly a veteran, but he has seen much. Smiling and appreciative, Clarke sits at the Sunderland training ground and tells The Athletic: “I have found a sense of belonging here: I feel comfortable and I’m enjoying playing my football. I think you can see that, not just with me but with the whole team. We look confident. And we should be.
“In football, it’s hard to get to a point where you are happy and just stay at that point. We all have ups and downs in terms of form and whatever else. But since I’ve come to this club, I feel like it’s been on an upward trajectory and with that direction, you don’t want to be left behind. The club’s getting stronger. You want to be in line with that; be one of those driving it forward.
“I feel it personally and a lot of the boys feel it. We’re thankful for the opportunity and we just try to repay it by performing.”
Getting happy and staying happy: it is notable in the conversation how often Clarke refers to the “uncertainty” of professional football and to “doubts” — internal and external. He does not often discuss Tottenham but he revisits the transfer he himself at the time called “bizarre” and reveals a jolting initial exchange with Mourinho.
“The actual move to Tottenham was out of the blue,” Clarke says. “I knew I’d done quite well in a debut season at Leeds, but you never expect a team who’ve just lost in the Champions League final to be knocking on the door.
“There was uncertainty. You’re stepping up a level and I was only 17/18 that season. So you’re wondering whether you can survive in that environment, training with those players. ‘Are they going to be a million miles away from what I am?’ Or, ‘Can I go there and… not stand out, but not feel out of place?’
Advertisement
“After my first week in pre-season, I felt I’d done alright and that doubt sort of goes. But it’s a bit daunting — you’re watching players on TV at World Cups and Champions League finals and suddenly you’re sat next to them putting your boots on to go training.
“But they’re only people at the end of the day. It’s just knowing you can survive and not look out of place.
“Pochettino was the manager who signed me but I went back on loan to Leeds for six months and by the time I came back to Tottenham, it was Mourinho. Again, there’s uncertainty: ‘Is he going to want anything to do with me?’
“But when I went in for pre-season (in 2020) Mourinho was brilliant with me, a really good guy. He wanted the best for me and the team, especially the young lads. He wanted to see the boys develop. I think he was at a point in his managerial career where it wasn’t so much about winning at all costs — and that fitted with the club’s philosophy. Ryan Sessegnon came through the door at the same time and we both came from the Championship, really. It was about embedding us in the squad and developing us. He was brilliant for that.
“To start with, it was about him seeing what you’re capable of. I remember the first day of pre-season. We were going out to train and I was introduced to him in the physio’s room as I was getting my ankle strapped.
“I’d just been on quite an unsuccessful loan at QPR and he knew, obviously. He just said: ‘Either you’re shit, or QPR are shit. And we’ll find out today.’”
Laughing, Clarke adds: “That made me a little bit nervous.
“I went out to train, did quite well and he put me in his Europa League squad. So there were signs of confidence coming from him and I enjoyed working under him.
View this post on Instagram
“People might think of Tottenham as an unsuccessful time but with people like that and the players, you can’t not learn. Even if you’re not playing, you’re developing. You’re seeing how they conduct themselves. It’s experience: a learning curve you can’t get if you’re not there.
“So you can look at it and say, ‘I went there, didn’t play and ended up getting sold without making an impression on the club’, but for my personal development as a young kid, watching them every day, you can’t replicate that.”
Advertisement
Mourinho was a piece of Clarke’s unique football education. Born in York, he joined Leeds aged eight and came through the academy to play for the under-23s as a young teenager.
At 17, he was given a first-team debut by Marcelo Bielsa. It is quite a line to write, never mind something to experience. Clarke, who replaced Stuart Dallas in a 1-1 draw against Brentford in October 2018, laughs again as he says: “It feels a long time ago.
“And when you’re a young kid — I’m still a young kid — you don’t really take time to reflect.
“At the time I was training with the first team every day and I felt the manager liked me as a player, even at a young age. I’d been on the bench numerous times and you’re just waiting for the opportunity to play. That day it came, it was like a stepping stone into professional football.”
And Bielsa? What is he like?
“I’ve never met anybody within the game as intense. It was my debut season, so to speak, in professional football, so I just assumed it’s what it’s like when you get to this level. He was ridiculously intense, ridiculously detailed in everything he did, but obviously he brought success to the club, so you can’t question it.
“There were no grey areas; it was black or white. If he wanted you to run in behind, you’d run in behind. If he wanted you to come and play in the pocket, you’d play in the pocket. It helps because you get that clarity of what the manager expects. I think he got the best out of what we had there.
“The day prior to a game, if the opposition had played three different formations across a number of games, we’d work on all three to cover all bases. So when it came to the day, we knew what to expect. There’d be no grey area. Alex [Neil] was similar in a way, he liked to cover all bases, just not to the extent you were dead on your feet the day before a game.”
Advertisement
Dead on your feet?
“Some days. You’d never show it because you wanted to play. But, physically, it was definitely demanding; mentally as well, because you’d get bamboozled with a lot of information.
“I was a young kid playing academy football, trying to develop, then you’re pressured into pressing this particular footballer at a particular time. You’re doing everything to win a game.
“You’re playing against bigger players you just can’t pass with ease. So you have to pick your moments. I’m doing that now. I’m thankful he embedded that in me.”
Physicality — or lack of it — is an element in the surprise of Sunderland this season. A squad with centre-halves Danny Batth and Dan Ballard, midfield captain Corry Evans and centre-forward Ross Stewart all missing for lengthy periods (among others) lost its spine. But it is not spineless.
Clarke has been one of the leaders from the front, which, given his age, has also been remarkable. But then Mowbray regularly fields a team filled with players aged 19-22, the youngest in the Championship.
“I’m still young,” Clarke says, “but in this squad, I do feel like a bit of a senior player. Against West Brom (last month) I think I was the third-oldest. When I came in last year I’d always be in the young section when we do young vs old the day before a game, in little boxes. Now I don’t even walk to the young box, at 22 I know I’m walking into the old one. It’s hard to believe.”
At 5ft 11in, he is also one of Sunderland’s taller players, and another detail hard to believe is that Clarke’s Sunderland debut last January came in a 6-0 hammering at Bolton Wanderers in England’s third tier. Twenty-four hours later, Sunderland manager Lee Johnson, who signed Clarke on loan, was dismissed.
“Yeah,” he says, “I got off to a bit of rocky start.
“I came in during the build-up to the Bolton game, sat on the bench, watched them get beat 6-0 — I say watched, I was involved as well. A day later the manager who brought me in gets sacked and again it’s that uncertainty. ‘Have I made a big mistake here? What’s going on?’.
Advertisement
“I spoke to the manager three or four days before and he said: ‘This is our plan for the rest of the season, this is where I want you to play.’ Then he gets sacked.
“Then it’s: ‘Who’s coming in? Are they going to want me as a player?’ If they bring in someone who just wants to pump it long, that’s not really my game.
“At the time, I was still at Tottenham. I didn’t want to come out and have an unsuccessful loan either. You have to think about yourself at times. But then Alex came in and steadied the ship. There was a phase of adaptation, but we had a good end to the season.”
Promotion via the League One play-off final win over Wycombe at Wembley led to a discussion with Sunderland about making Clarke a permanent employee. Spurs agreed — the deal includes further payments to Tottenham if targets are met — and Clarke flew to Portugal to join his old/new team-mates on pre-season.
Then five games into the return to the Championship, after scoring that first goal of the season against Coventry, Clarke watched on as Neil left for Stoke on a pre-game Friday morning.
“Again, it’s just the doubt and uncertainty,” he says. “We’d started well, picked up a few points. Then Alex made that decision for whatever reason and we’ve got that uncertainty. ‘Who do we get now?’ Where do we go from here?’
“But they seem to have brought the right man in for the job and we’ve got stronger as the season has gone on.”
Mowbray arrived to see Clarke deliver an exceptional display of attacking flair against Rotherham on the last day of August. Two games later, he finished off one of the team goals of the season at Reading.
WOW!! How about this for a team goal. Superb football from Sunderland. ⚽ pic.twitter.com/v6rxJNF9Uw
— Sky Sports Football (@SkyFootball) September 14, 2022
But on those days and nights when Clarke is unable to wriggle free or ping in a decisive cross or shot, Mowbray has persisted. The reward has been nine goals and 11 assists, not that Clarke assesses himself statistically.
“After games and training,” he says, “we have stats sheets to show how far and fast you’ve run, but you’d need every game in front of you to measure the development properly.
Advertisement
“I feel stronger in myself, quicker. That comes from playing and you build up that robustness. It’s hard to explain — I’ve been thrown in from the polar opposite of not playing and you feel like a… can I say ‘bag of shit’? You feel like a bag of shit coming onto the pitch, but when you’re playing every day, you feel natural.
“You know when you’ve not driven for a while and you get behind the wheel and you feel so uncoordinated? Then you do it every day and you feel like you could do it with your eyes closed? That’s how I’d explain it, not stats-based.”
Similarly, he does not attribute rising strength to his pre-match Weetabix, nor does he reduce Sunderland’s percussive passing between himself, Roberts, Amad and Alex Pritchard to stats, instead referring to “a rhythm game”.
“We’ve got really talented players and when things are coming off, it looks beautiful, doesn’t it? Sometimes it’ll be frustrating because we might try the extra pass when we don’t need to — I’m probably playing a part in that.
“But because of the personnel we’ve got, you can’t put too many restrictions on. So you get both sides of it. When it comes off, it looks unbelievable.”
Of Mowbray, he says: “I think trust was there from the beginning.
“And the stability of playing week in, week out brings consistency. He’s delighted if I’m just working hard. He says before every single game that if the talented players are working their hardest, we’re going to have a good day.
“He’s been brilliant. I’ve loved playing under him and working for him. He’s relaxed — though obviously, he has his moments. He’s been annoyed with me a few times at half-time: Hull, QPR.
“He’s had to be patient. He’s got young boys; young European boys who need time to adjust. But if it doesn’t work, he doesn’t come in and shout at us, because that’s how he wants us to play. He doesn’t beat us up. When we win, he keeps us grounded and humble. I think he’s got the balance perfect.”
Advertisement
Mowbray will be pleased to hear Clarke’s wariness about Luton and a potential second consecutive Sunderland promotion — “we’re not getting ahead of ourselves” — because, with nine first-team players missing, Sunderland will do exceedingly well to overcome an athletic Luton side, then win a Wembley final.
If there is no promotion, few locals will complain because Wearside has been reconnected. On the wing, Clarke has been central to it.
And there is no doubt or uncertainty, his future direction points one way: up.
(Top photo: Ian Horrocks/Sunderland AFC via Getty Images)