It was January 2022 when Leighton Clarkson’s first loan away from Liverpool was cut short.
Having joined boyhood club Blackburn Rovers, a lack of game-time at Ewood Park ultimately prompted the move to terminated. Twelve months on and there has been talk of his latest loan also ending prematurely, but this time for very different reasons, with the midfielder’s fortunes in his second stint away from the Reds in stark contrast to his first.
The 21-year-old has shone at Aberdeen so far this season, returning five goals and two appearances from 19 appearances, with the Scottish outfit currently sitting fourth in the table and preparing for a Scottish League Cup semi-final clash with Rangers at Hampden Park this weekend. The prospect of silverware or qualifying for Europe is in sight.
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Yet Clarkson’s form hasn’t gone unnoticed south of the border, with reports this week claiming that Queens Park Rangers, Reading, and West Bromwich Albion would all like to lure him away from Pittodrie. However, Aberdeen manager Jim Goodwin believes Liverpool have no plans to bring back the youngster this month.
Despite the speculation, the midfielder is fully focused on Aberdeen and delighted with how the temporary spell away from Anfield has gone so far.
“I don’t think about what’s going to happen in the future really. I just want to do my best for Aberdeen now,” he said in an exclusive interview with the ECHO. “I’m getting that experience and playing men’s football. I just want to do as well as I can and see where that takes me.
“I’m really enjoying it. I’ve come to gain the experience I feel I needed at this club and in the Scottish league. I’m doing that so far, I’m enjoying my football. I want to keep going and try and win a trophy or help us win third place.”
Fielded in a more advanced role for Aberdeen than what he has been used to in the Liverpool academy, Clarkson has been thriving in front of goal and scored a number of spectacular strikes. The most recent came against Rangers following the World Cup break, while an eye-catching 30-yard free-kick against St Johnstone back in August earned him comparisons with former Dons loanee James Maddison.
And the 21-year-old is certainly enjoying being unleashed further forward for Aberdeen, and has set himself a high target for the end of the season.
“I know I can play as a six, eight or 10. Wherever the gaffer wants me to play, I know I can play it,” he said. “Where I’m playing now gives me the licence to get further forward, create chances and score goals.
“It’s always good and I’ve scored quite a few good goals, but I just want more. More goals, more assists. I want to try and get myself to around 20 goal contributions. It’s obviously really tough but I always set myself high targets. Hopefully I can do it.
“I enjoy it. I remember my Under-16s season at Liverpool, when I was 15, so playing the year above. I played as a 10 for the first time for them. I think I was getting top goalscorer, level with the striker, at that time so I’ve always had that instinct to try and score goals and assist goals.
“As I got older, I dropped back to try and control games for Liverpool. I was a single six at Liverpool, so I was always getting the ball and getting like 80 to 100 passes per game.
“Coming up here and playing more advanced, I don’t get that. I’m not always on the ball as much but when I am on the ball, I’m in advanced areas where I can create goals for the two strikers and score goals too.”
Meanwhile on the comparisons with Maddison, Clarkson said: “I didn’t know too much about him being here when I came up here to be fair. I saw his free-kick (vs Rangers) the day before I scored my free-kick, which is a bit ironic.
“He’s a world-class player so to get comparisons to him are very nice. I’m obviously not at that level yet, but that’s what I’m striving to be. I’ll just keep working hard and hopefully I can do as well as him.”
Clarkson made an immediate impact at Aberdeen, coming off the bench early on to score a long-range effort against St Mirren on his debut back in August. Looking back, the switch happened rather quickly, with the midfielder’s parents having to drive his things up to Scotland for him after it was made clear he’d be needed right away in the matchday squad.
“Getting off to a good start was really helpful and I’ve not looked back since,” Clarkson said. “I knew of the interest on the Tuesday and then spoke to the gaffer on Thursday.
“He spoke really well about everything, really. The ambition of the club, the games you’ll play against the likes of Rangers, Celtic, Hibs, and Hearts. It’s a good place to showcase your talent. I also wanted to come up here because of the physicality side of the game. It was a win/win really.
“I spoke to a few players from the Academy I knew who were already up there. I could name five or six who are all in Scotland now. Everyone of them said it would be good for me.
“The feedback from Jurgen Klopp and his backroom staff, and some first-team players was also all really good. The Blackburn loan didn’t go as well as I would have liked it to, so he (Klopp) was just saying, ‘go out and do your best again. In time it will all come good,’ because he knows the player I am.
“After that on the Friday, when I knew I was going to sign, I was thinking I’ll get my car packed and get all my stuff up there. But no, it was, ‘we want you on the bench tomorrow.’
“The quickest way to do that is to fly. So I managed to get myself to the airport in time, and my mum and dad drove my car up with all my stuff in. I think I got there at nine o’clock to sign it all, didn’t leave until like 11 or 12 at night.
“Go to bed and then the next thing you know, I’m having pre-match at half 10 having never met any of the lads. I was thinking I’d just be on the bench, just to see what the league’s like, but ended up coming on quite early.
“I was just thinking, ‘do what I can do well, give the fans a glimpse of what I can do’. Then I managed to score which put me in a really good place.”
It’s clear that Clarkson is still stung by how his first loan to Blackburn panned out. The club he still supports, he made just seven appearances for Rovers, with only four of them starts, before returning to Anfield last January.
But Blackburn would have been happy to keep him, with Clarkson himself taking the difficult decision to ask for his loan move to be ended. Looking back he has no regrets about his time at the club, and is just glad to be back enjoying his football.
“My time at Blackburn was not a nice feeling,” he admitted. “I loved when I played there and I always will. I’ll always support them.
“But last January I needed to come back and get games under my belt again. Try to get six months of Under-23s football and play really well to try and get a decent loan for this year so I could start afresh.
“It was a really hard decision. Other than not playing, I really enjoyed everything about being at Blackburn. I lived two minutes away, I know all my family and friends are Blackburn fans and I can say I’ve pulled on the shirt. It was always something I wanted to do at some point in my career anyway.
“At the start I did want to stay because I was enjoying it, I just wasn’t playing. But the people around me were telling me I needed to go back and enjoy my football again. After a few days I was like I need to do what’s best for me and not see it from a fan’s point of view.
“I don’t regret going at all. I didn’t know at the time I wasn’t going to play, I was getting told that I would play.
“But the team just found a winning formula and the three best players were probably in the middle of the pitch anyway. They switched to five at the back then ended up winning like nine games out of 12 or something like that and kept loads of clean sheets.
“By Christmas, they were second in the table so I couldn’t complain about not playing because the team were doing so well. It was just one of them.
“It was probably not the right time for me to have gone. But I don’t look back on that anymore. I’m here now, I’m enjoying my football and I want to keep enjoying my football.”
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