Tottenham sell-on clause revealed in Jack Clarke saga

Sunderland are primed for a busy summer following an impressive return to the Championship, where they staked an unlikely surge for promotion.

Within that time, Tony Mowbray maximised the output of his squad and saw numerous players hit the best heights of their careers to date, such as Anthony Patterson, Patrick Roberts and Manchester United loanee Amad Diallo.

It is no surprise then that top flight clubs have begun to cast an interest towards Wearside, but the player who is generating the longest list of admirers is winger Jack Clarke, who orchestrated a leading role in his side’s play-off charge.

Who is interested in Jack Clarke?

After their own promotion, Burnley have been notably relentless in their hunt for the 22-year-old, although Sunderland are unwilling to part ways if it is not on their own terms.

And, as per the Northern Echo, Burnley have mounted a bid of £7M upfront, with prospective add-on clauses elevating the total cost of the deal to just over £10M.

Indeed, Clarke had harvested a similar valuation when he joined Tottenham in 2019 as an untried, inexperienced teenager who had displayed only snippets of promise under the tuition of Marcelo Bielsa up at Leeds United.

Given all that he has achieved since – chiefly two starring seasons for Sunderland – the Championship outfit are believed to feel that Burnley’s bid severely undervalues Clarke, who has, by and large, surfaced as one of the most exciting and efficient prodigies throughout the entirety of the Football League.

As such, they are said to be demanding more than double of Burnley’s initial valuation of Clarke.

Is Sunderland’s Jack Clarke valuation fair?

There are numerous reasons why Sunderland are instigating such a significant outlay for Clarke.

Across all competitions last term, the attacker tallied 11 goals and 11 assists apiece, proving a crucial goalscoring and creative threat as Sunderland became one of the division’s most entertaining, attacking-orientated sides.

That alone likely justifies their demands, but the report also alludes to the Keane Lewis-Potter transfer, which has been cited by the Mackems hierarchy in discussions.

The previous summer, Lewis-Potter, then 21-years-old, was signed by Brentford from Hull City for a reported £16M fee off the back of a campaign where he contributed to 13 goals and three assists, an impressive return but one that somewhat pales in comparison to the numbers that Clarke chalked up.

That is a factor, of course, as is the belief that Clarke’s education at the likes of Leeds and Tottenham enforces that he is at a more refined, progressed development stage, and as such, has a higher ceiling for future improvement.

On the pitch, Clarke is very much the flagship player for what has emerged as a sustainable, progressive-minded philosophy encompassing the production of young upcoming footballers with their best years still to come.

As a whole, Sunderland are a club very much on an upwards trajectory, and the future appears bright. The foundations have been laid with an average age of 23.4, the youngest in the Championship, and this forward-thinking strategy may serve to convince Clarke to stay put for the time being.

What is the situation with Tottenham?

The report describes that an unspecified sell-on clause was inserted in the deal that took Clarke up to Sunderland from Tottenham a year prior, meaning that the North London club will be in line to receive a proportion of any figure that the Mackems collect for the prospect.

It is undisclosed just how much of the fee Tottenham would get for themselves, though given the stubborn game that Sunderland are playing, it would appear that the agreement between the two clubs holds some form of significance.

That said, Clarke still has three years left on his current deal, and unless he opts to down tools and force through a move, they face no need to sell just yet, and the expenditure from Kyril Louis-Dreyfus means that things on the financial front are not desperate, either.

So there is every possibility that they may well hold out for another year or so until Clarke’s valuation potentially increases exponentially, which would, of course, present a larger outlay back to Tottenham, but it would also ensure that the sell-on-clause conundrum would not be as impactful as a result of receiving an even bigger transfer fee.

However, Sunderland’s buy low, sell high transfer model that focuses on enhancing young, unproven talent does, in the end, hinge upon gathering and reinvesting an eventual profit to reinvest for reinforcements, and this has given Sunderland something to think about, too.

It remains unclear just what they will do, but it is also very clear that they will prove a tough proposition in negotiations and will not part ways with Clarke quite so easily.