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[Albion] Matt Clarke- Portsmouth defender **SIGNED and LOANED to DERBY**



spence

British and Proud
Oct 15, 2014
9,811
Crawley
I'm not sure what you can base that on. Balogun has spent the majority of his career in the Bundesliga, and has played for his country nearly 30 times including at the African Nations and a World Cup.

Clarke might be a decent enough prospect, but all has faced in his career so far is the likes of Rochdale, Gillingham and Accrington in the noddy leagues. The most fearsome team he's come up against so far is Luton Town.

Given time he might be ok, but he's got an awful lot to prove. The step-up from the third division to the Premier League is not one I've seen many centrebacks pull off.
Connor Goldson started down in the dirty leagues and now playing for Rangers. A player who was highly thought of. Maybe same pattern forming here ?
 


Whitechapel

Famous Last Words
Jul 19, 2014
4,057
Not in Whitechapel
Thought he did okay initially and against Palace, but admittedly was poor vs WBA, and in another game (?Arsenal)....

Always hard coming into the PL from another league (see Bernardo) and even harder when you’re on the bench.

Think he’s okay and likely to be more prepared than a player coming from
league 1.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Was at fault for Chelsea’s goal, gave away a penalty against Palace, awful against West Brom & should have seen red against Palace. A good debut v Man and a goal against Palace seem to have papered over a lot of cracks.
 


TSB

Captain Hindsight
Jul 7, 2003
17,666
Lansdowne Place, Hove
It was the info that was in Twitter at the time, if you bothered to read the rest of the thread you could see it got superceded.
If everybody didn't put "crap" info in NSC it would be a very quiet place ;)

Well, at least we agree on something!
 


Easy 10

Brain dead MUG SHEEP
Jul 5, 2003
61,677
Location Location
Connor Goldson started down in the dirty leagues and now playing for Rangers. A player who was highly thought of. Maybe same pattern forming here ?

Good shout, although he's only in the MTL now. I really rated Goldson, but we'll probably never know now whether he could've made the step-up to the Premier League. Plenty on here had their reservations.

Personally I was disappointed when we didn't get Tomori on a permanent deal after his promising loan spell. He's a player who I can definitely see carving out a career as a PL defender. He might even get his chance this season if FF gets the Chelsea gig, what with their transfer embargo.
 






Easy 10

Brain dead MUG SHEEP
Jul 5, 2003
61,677
Location Location
Didn't Lewis Dunk start his career in League One?

He's done alright

He also had a more gradual learning curve, with 5/6 years in the Championship though - and boy, did he need it. He had spells where he consistently looked like an accident waiting to happen. But with regular football next to some excellent CB's of the calibre of Greer and Upson, and with some quality coaching, eventually he eradicated the mistakes then flourished and matured into the player we see today.

Back then, had he gone from us in L1 straight up to a Premier League club at that stage of his career, he'd have been eaten alive and may never have recovered.
 




nwgull

Well-known member
Jul 25, 2003
13,653
Manchester
Good shout, although he's only in the MTL now. I really rated Goldson, but we'll probably never know now whether he could've made the step-up to the Premier League. Plenty on here had their reservations.

Personally I was disappointed when we didn't get Tomori on a permanent deal after his promising loan spell. He's a player who I can definitely see carving out a career as a PL defender. He might even get his chance this season if FF gets the Chelsea gig, what with their transfer embargo.

I’m not sure Goldson has what it takes to step up to PL level. There’s a reason why the club were prepared to have Duffy as our most expensive signing in the 2016 summer window.

I agree that Tomori is a great defender with bags of potential and wouldn’t have complained if we’d signed him in any transfer window since his loan spell with us.
 




Easy 10

Brain dead MUG SHEEP
Jul 5, 2003
61,677
Location Location
I’m not sure Goldson has what it takes to step up to PL level. There’s a reason why the club were prepared to have Duffy as our most expensive signing in the 2016 summer window.

I agree that Tomori is a great defender with bags of potential and wouldn’t have complained if we’d signed him in any transfer window since his loan spell with us.

We missed the boat a bit with him didn't we. Although of course we have no idea what kind of fee Chelsea were after, and they may have wanted to keep him on their books whilst continuing to just loan him out, as they have done since.

I thought at the time that Tomori would be a great investment though, you could see he had all the attributes. Quick, strong, excellent header of the ball. He was only going to get better, and CH would certainly have been the perfect tutor to bring that out of him. We got Duffy instead though, and that worked out ok, to be fair.
 


Hiney

Super Moderator
Helpful Moderator
Jul 5, 2003
19,392
Penrose, Cornwall
He also had a more gradual learning curve, with 5/6 years in the Championship though - and boy, did he need it. He had spells where he consistently looked like an accident waiting to happen. But with regular football next to some excellent CB's of the calibre of Greer and Upson, and with some quality coaching, eventually he eradicated the mistakes then flourished and matured into the player we see today.

Back then, had he gone from us in L1 straight up to a Premier League club at that stage of his career, he'd have been eaten alive and may never have recovered.

I know.

It was just a fairly weak attempt at countering the people who have written this guy off before he's even put pen to paper.
 








chaileyjem

#BarberIn
NSC Patreon
Jun 27, 2012
13,780
I know.

It was just a fairly weak attempt at countering the people who have written this guy off before he's even put pen to paper.

Agreed. Another attempt. That Premier League novice Steve Cook has seemed to have done ok after being spotted lurking in our reserves, having spent most of his career up til then being loaned out to a string of Conference clubs.
 


chaileyjem

#BarberIn
NSC Patreon
Jun 27, 2012
13,780
We missed the boat a bit with him didn't we. Although of course we have no idea what kind of fee Chelsea were after, and they may have wanted to keep him on their books whilst continuing to just loan him out, as they have done since.

I thought at the time that Tomori would be a great investment though, you could see he had all the attributes. Quick, strong, excellent header of the ball. He was only going to get better, and CH would certainly have been the perfect tutor to bring that out of him. We got Duffy instead though, and that worked out ok, to be fair.

He was never for sale, Chelsea haven't sold him so we didn't get Duffy instead, he couldn't have been a great investment and we didn't miss the boat.
But agreed about his other attributes.
 




B.W.

New member
Jul 5, 2003
13,666
He was never for sale, Chelsea haven't sold him so we didn't get Duffy instead, he couldn't have been a great investment and we didn't miss the boat.
But agreed about his other attributes.

How can you know that for sure CJ? You can't...
 


Machiavelli

Well-known member
Oct 11, 2013
16,563
Fiveways
We missed the boat a bit with him didn't we. Although of course we have no idea what kind of fee Chelsea were after, and they may have wanted to keep him on their books whilst continuing to just loan him out, as they have done since.

I thought at the time that Tomori would be a great investment though, you could see he had all the attributes. Quick, strong, excellent header of the ball. He was only going to get better, and CH would certainly have been the perfect tutor to bring that out of him. We got Duffy instead though, and that worked out ok, to be fair.

Tomori played in our promotion season, when we had Duffy. Tomori and Hunemeier covered for Duffy when he picked up his injury that kept him out of the end of the season.
 


Easy 10

Brain dead MUG SHEEP
Jul 5, 2003
61,677
Location Location
Tomori played in our promotion season, when we had Duffy. Tomori and Hunemeier covered for Duffy when he picked up his injury that kept him out of the end of the season.

OK, we HAD Duffy instead then.

He still would've been a great addition, if we'd had an option on him.
 


Thunder Bolt

Ordinary Supporter
Agreed. Another attempt. That Premier League novice Steve Cook has seemed to have done ok after being spotted lurking in our reserves, having spent most of his career up til then being loaned out to a string of Conference clubs.

To be fair, Cook went down a league to League 1, when we were a Championship team. Bournemouth then got promoted twice with him and Elphick in their team.
 






Skaville

Well-known member
Jun 10, 2004
10,099
Queens Park
Agreed. Another attempt. That Premier League novice Steve Cook has seemed to have done ok after being spotted lurking in our reserves, having spent most of his career up til then being loaned out to a string of Conference clubs.

Tommy Elphick is another one. Was playing incredibly well in the Premier League until that career threatening injury
 



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