Jack Clarke could be the man to provide Sunderland with the quality moment they need in the League One play-off final against Wycombe. The Tottenham Hotspur loanee was one of the standout performers for the Black Cats in the second-leg of their play-off semi-final at Hillsborough.
The winger was not phased by the partisan Sheffield Wednesday crowd and went on a number of mazy runs, causing problems for the Owls backline all evening. It was one of these tricky runs that set up the aggregate winner for Alex Neil's side.
Clarke got onto the end of a long ball upfield from Danny Batth, drove at Jordan Story and cut a dangerous ball back across the six-yard box that Patrick Roberts poked home. The winger did not seem to be affected by the raucous Wednesday crowd and he rose to the occasion.
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"It's what happens with players, particularly young ones, they dip and they come back, they dip and they come back," said Neil after the semi-final aggregate win. "Jack has got good quality. He can take the ball, he can dribble, he can go past people, and those kind of players are really useful to have in the team and he delivered the moment we needed and Pat [Roberts] got on the end of it.
"The hardest thing always is to get really creative players to work extremely hard, but our lads have got an appetite and an understanding of the greater good. The rest of their teammates demand it, I demand it, and they demand it of themselves.
"You don't win anything without hard work and graft - that's a pre-requisite - and then, as for the rest of it, if you've got quality, that's a bonus. We've got that quality, and we also put in the hard work and the graft."
Clarke's experience of playing on the big stage for Leeds United has already stood him in good stead so far, at times in the semi-final he looked like a boy playing in the schoolyard. Sunderland know if he turns up, they'll stand a good chance at winning promotion back to the Championship.
