Jose Mourinho’s swift appointment as Mauricio Pochettino’s successor at Tottenham Hotspur has sent shockwaves around the world of football, and one connection should be of interest to Leeds United fans.
The Portuguese was a somewhat surprising appointment, a glamorous big-name manager to help usher in a new era at the new White Hart Lane.
What does this mean for Leeds United academy graduate Jack Clarke, who signed for the club this summer before returning to Elland Road on loan this season?
The former Manchester United and Chelsea boss has often been criticised for his inability to develop academy graduates and younger players, something he’s defended in the past.
His track record isn’t the best, and you can count on one hand the players born after 1993 who have been unqualified successes under his guidance. His critics have suggested he struggles to deal with the millennial generation of footballers.
Romelu Lukaku, Mohamed Salah and Kevin De Bruyne have all forged successful careers at the highest levels of European football, but struggled to find regular opportunities while youngsters working under Mourinho.
Chelsea have had a successful academy, winning seven of the last 10 FA Youth Cups, but it’s only now under Frank Lampard graduates such as Mason Mount, Fikayo Tomori and Tammy Abraham are getting opportunities with their boyhood club.
No manager in English football history has spent more than Jose Mourinho, from his two spells in charge of Chelsea and Manchester United, but Spurs chairman Daniel Levy is notoriously thrifty when it comes to his chequebook - 10 clubs, including Brighton & Hove Albion, Aston Villa and Bournemouth, have recorded a higher net spend since 2016.
There’s been a suggestion the 56-year-old could be due to change tack, and after being unveiled he was keen to stress how happy he is to work with the club’s existing squad options, making a specific reference to the club’s academy.
“I really like this squad,” said the new Tottenham manager.
“Looking to the young players, there is not one manager in the world that doesn’t like to play young players and to help young players develop. There is not one.
“The problem is sometimes you get into clubs where the work that is below you is not good enough to produce these players so I look to our history and you see the academy is always giving the talents the first team need.
“Of course I look forward to work with that profile.”
That should be music to the ears of 18-year-old Clarke, who is enduring a frustrating season back at Leeds after breaking through last year.
He’s yet to play a single minute for United in the Championship this season, and there are rumours Spurs will look to recall him in January due to his lack of opportunities.
There was a sense working under Mauricio Pochettino would provide a natural continuity for Clarke, with the Argentinian moulding his intensive management style under his former mentor Bielsa.
Pochettino has a proven track record of successfully developing youngsters like Harry Kane, Eric Dier and Dele Alli at Tottenham and Luke Shaw and Nathaniel Clyne at Southampton before that.
Mourinho’s appointment, and Clarke’s lack of minutes back at Leeds, has put things up in the air with regards to his immediate future.
It appears extremely unlikely the new Spurs boss looks to start playing Clarke back in January, but he - and the wider Tottenham hierarchy - may well agree it would be best to send the player elsewhere, where he’d get first-team minutes, and that’s surely likelier now with the Pochettino-Bielsa connection severed.
Last season, Chelsea recalled Lewis Baker before sending him out on loan to Reading for the second half of the season, unimpressed with the two league starts and 223 total minutes he was given at Leeds. We could well be in for a repeat situation with Clarke.
If Mourinho is serious about turning over a new leaf and looking to the youth, he could do a lot worse than the dynamic young winger and he should carefully manage the next stages of his development accordingly.
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