Leeds United have long been known as a side who trust their Academy system to produce a conveyor belt of players. Evidence of this can easily be testified to – you only have to look to the Premier League.
The likes of Fabian Delph, James Milner, Danny Rose, Charlie Taylor and Lewis Cook are gracing Premier League sides. Back in West Yorkshire, that conveyor belt is still turning, and still producing. Kalvin Phillips is a first-team regular and is reborn under Marcelo Bielsa.
There are also green shoots showing in the willingness of the club to both promote, and put their faith in, youngsters from the Academy set-up. One of these, one youngster who is grabbing the headlines is 18-year-old Jack Clarke.
Clarke came to the attention of Leeds United fans after being used from the bench by Bielsa, his input creating an automatic impact. Since then he’s started the last couple of games, evidence of the faith that the Whites have in him.
That impact, obviously, comes at a price; that price being noticed by other sides – especially those higher up the football ladder. That’s been the case with youngster Jack Clarke, with sides such as Manchester City, Manchester United and Spurs said to be showing interest.
The good news for Leeds United fans is that both the club, and his agent (tweet – below), say the youngster isn’t going anywhere.
Jack will definitely be there and I hope he will be starting! I don’t understand why you think he won’t… #MOT https://t.co/o6J6WU9auh
— Ian Harte (@ianharte23) January 23, 2019
Yet!
What Football London’s Alasdair Gold says is that “Spurs will return in the summer” with a bid to buy. This quote, from Gold’s linked piece, comes on the back of him saying that there could yet be interest from Spurs in this window on a ‘but-to-loan-back’ basis.
Faith in Clarke from Leeds United has seen the youngster make 14 Sky Bet Championship appearances this campaign, three of these coming as starts. In those 14 games, he’s more than underlined his potential by returning two goals and two assists.
