Sunderland: Clarke-Harris can resolve problem position
Jonson Clarke-Harris has twice finished as League One’s top scorer and will feel he deserves another shot at the Championship.
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Jonson Clarke-Harris has twice finished as League One’s top scorer and will feel he deserves another shot at the Championship.
Sunderland impressed by wrapping up the majority of their transfer business early in the window, but manager Tony Mowbray has made it clear the club are still in need of another striker.
The Black Cats have targeted youthful players so far this summer, with Nectarios Triantis, Jobe Bellingham, Luis ‘Hemir’ Semedo and Jenson Seelt all joining so far.
However, while Hemir arrives with a reputation of being a hugely talented striker following his time at Benfica, he has yet to play any senior football.
Factor in Amad Diallo’s return to parent club Manchester United, plus the fact Ross Stewart is going to miss the start of the new season, and it is clear why Mowbray has publicly stated his desire to bring in another attacking player.
Ellis Simms looked like being the ideal man to lead the line for Sunderland next season after his hugely successful spell on loan in the first half of the 2022-23 campaign – when he netted seven goals in just 17 games – but Championship rivals Coventry City got to the Everton striker first.
That leaves Sunderland looking far and wide for another striker, and it may be that they turn to one of their previous targets, with the East Anglian Daily Times reporting earlier this year that Mowbray is a fan of Peterborough United’s Jonson Clarke-Harris.
Clarke-Harris does not exactly fit the profile for the type of player Sunderland have previously targeted, given the £6.1k-per-week striker will turn 29 later this month.
However, that is arguably the peak age for a striker, while Clarke-Harris’s experience – and not least his goalscoring ability – could be a huge factor in what Black Cats supporters will hope is another promotion push this coming season.
Indeed, Clarke-Harris has twice won the Golden Boot award in League One – a division he is clearly too good for.
The one-cap Jamaica international jointly-led the scoring charts again in the third tier last season with 26 goals in 46 regular-season games, yet Peterborough somehow missed out on promotion after capitulating in their play-off semi-final with Sheffield Wednesday.
Clarke-Harris has over 400 senior appearances to his name, having started his career by becoming Coventry’s youngest-ever player aged 16 in 2010, and has scored 138 times.
The Leicester-born striker averaged 0.59 goals per 90 minutes during the regular League One season last time out, as per FBref, which is a tally only Stewart (0.86) can better among Sunderland players, albeit in a division higher.
It would be easy to dismiss Clarke-Harris as a player who can perform in League One but is unable to take the step up to the Championship, yet he scored 12 goals in a poor Peterborough team the last time he played at that level. To put that in some perspective, only Diallo (13) bettered that among Sunderland players last season.
Hailed as a “special talent” during his time at Rotherham United by then-manager Steve Evans, it may well be that Clarke-Harris now has a chance to show exactly what he is capable of for a team battling to earn promotion from the Championship.
Such a signing would then be a solution to the Black Cats’ problem position…