Whats the story with this guy? Any good?

Been linked in this mornings tabloids with Motherwell, Hibs and Dunfermline. He still has 18 months on his current contract so a fee of about £100k is being spoken about.

Can he make the step up to the SPL?

What's the story? Probably tabloid nonsense. Not worth 100k, not ready for the SPL.

Dunfermline would be a good move for him right now IMO.

Thats not really what I wanted to hear. We face losing Chris Porter in January to Notts Forest for a pityful £250k and we will be looking to replace him.

Hopefully McGhee can pull something better out the hat if your opinion of Pat Clarke is correct.

I see. Brian Wake, on the other hand...

I would be quite happy to get him back again.
He would be guaranteed some football as we only have two strikers.

Dunfermline would be a perfect move for him, he definatley has the potential to be in the spl one day but it wouldn't be right to just chuck him in when what he needs now is first team football.
Still I dont know how were going to get him...we dont have 100k lying about

I doubt he will be going anywhere in January unless an SPL side decide to take a gamble on him and/or 100k is offered.

If anything, it will be much less than that.....

It most probably is tabloid nonsense. Unless someone does offer big bucks for him he won't be going anywhere.

Anyway, I'm not sure he could make the step up to the SPL. He's our best striker since Ian Harty (maybe better) and a clinical finisher right enough, but his all round play can be pretty poor. When we signed him the ball seemed to stick to his feet, but recently his first touch has been poor and he's bullied off the ball too easily.

I don't know how good the SPL is quality wise as I don't watch Sportscene or anything, but the standard of this league is pretty rotten and anyone who's half decent can be a standout. Then again, Bryson and Imrie have moved up recently and are excelling so you never know

It's also worth remembering that before his 4 goals in the last 2 matches, he'd gone about 2 months without scoring. If there's a modicum of truth in this (which I doubt) then if I were a 'Well fan I'd be a bit worried that £100k might be spent as a knee-jerk reaction to some good recent form.

He did go a while without scoring, but then again, we went a while without ever getting out our own half. Now that McLaren is back in the team and we are creating more chances, Clarke is getting the goals again.

All I know is that we're a lot weaker without him and have absolutely no hope of staying up if he goes in January. I hope we do hold out for £100k if and when we sell him - but only on the proviso that its not until the summer. We got around £32.5k for Imrie when he had only 6 months to go on his contract - £100k for Clarke would seem fair.

Good luck to him and i hope he gets a big move at some point but im not sure if now is the time for him. From what i have seen his is definitely good enough for the pars but the SPL might be a step too far. However all he can do is improve so you never know. Hope he and Buchanan get a move to the SPL sometime

Great player in the 2nd division and he's handled the step up brilliantly.

Scored an absolute belter of an over head kick in the play-off final last year and he's started to score on a bit of a regular basis for a poor side. Clyde will however, be very hard pushed to get 100k for him. I wouldn't rule out a move to the SPL but 100k is alot for a club to pay for a player who is past the youth stage and hasn't had a proper bash at SPL level either.

No-one would pay Clyde 100k for any of their players.

Neither would anyone pay Morton 100k for any of their players. Including that c**t you lot cream yourselves over. Shimmin or something like that.

most 1st division sides struggling financially will be starting to tout their best players in the hope that they'll get a few quid in for them in january. thistle have already started with tuffey and buchanan.

Yet bids in excess of £100,000 have been made for Jim McAlister.

Keep yer hands aff him!

Irrelevant and diagreeable.

The thing with Clarke though - It really needs to be silly money for us to let him go. Keeping the likes of Clarke and McLaren are essential in our hope of staying up this season. Otherwise if we go down we could lose a shitload more money than what it's worth.

That was exactly the same arguement Cowden fans brought up when Clyde were after him and inevitably we got relegated after selling him. He came out and said he wanted to move to a bigger club in January so the club didnt stand in his way and he left for 20k or something. I doubt that was financially beneficial for Cowden. If he expresses his desire to go then 50-70k might not ne too far of the mark. Depends how strong your board is

One major difference is that he was out of contract in the summer at Cowdenbeath and had already signed a pre-contract at Clyde. As we ourselves have discovered, when a player signs a pre-contract and wants to move immediately, there's no point keeping him on.

The difference here is that he's contracted to Clyde for another 18 months. Our board will have the figures but there's absolutely no point us selling him for another year unless we receive a crazy offer.

If the team he is playing for create chances he will stick them away. If players like Colin Nish can score goals in the SPL i have no doubts whatsoever that Pat Clarke will score a good few goals.
Personally i wouldn't sell him in January when he still has 18 months left of his contract even if it is for 100k.
I can't for the life of me understand why there is so much intrest in him anyway when there is talented players like Brian Wake around.

That's good, then we can hang onto him and pump Clyde!

It would take at least £7million to move Dom anyway.

Not bad coming from someone who has seen him a possible twice this season!!


What tabloids did you see this in??

I didn't, the topic starter did.

And for the record (no pun intended), Pat Clarke has never played well against Morton from my memory, at least not for Clyde. And as has been suggested already, until recently he hasn't been scoring.

Saying Pat Clarke is worth 100k is like suggesting that Morton's recent run of form is championship-worthy!

I think he's too early for SPL football, I would wait til the summer before even thinking about selling him. We desperatly need him anyway.

We would struggle big style to score if he left as we dont have any other strikers, agree with the other Clyde fans with 18 months still on his contract and the large drop in money if we were to get relegated we should only sell him on if somebody offers silly money and cant see that happening the way things are.

As for can he cut it in the SPL? I dont see why not as stated Imrie & Bryson are both playing well in the SPL and the likes of Gomis, Conway play regularly in the SPL after signing from Cowdenbeath etc. He is a bit lightweight though and does get pushed off the ball easily sometimes.

Indeed, the vast majority of players in the first division would struggle to break £50,000 even with 18 months on the contract.

We were reported to have knocked back around £100,000 for Tom Brighton when he had only 6 months left on his contract in 2006 and that was only on the back of his show against Celtic surely we shouldn't let Pat go for much less than that still having 18 months left on his contract. All this publicity is only based on his last 2 games, before that nobody even thought he earned a thread on P&B.

And you know this how ???

Tremendous player with Cowden. Haven't seen him play since he went to Clyde but always thought he could have done better.
The SPL teams I've seen this season have been awful - don't see why he couldn't do a job for quite a few of them.

£100k for Clarke!?

We must be looking at £250k+ for Tuffey, Twaddle, Harkins & Buchanan then!

£50k on the dot plus add-ons for the next three years based on goals, appearances ect.


Again, this was 10k on the dot.

Onto Clarke making the step-up to the SPL, it's not impossible to think that. He's a great finisher and works extremely hard for his team-mates. The only draw-back about him, though, is that his first-touch and hold-up play is pretty horrendous at times. Also, if he's not got a creative player behind him making chances for him, he won't score. That's already been highlighted when he went two months without scoring at the same time that McLaren fucked up his ankle.

I'd hate to see the big man go, he really is a terrific talent, but I'd prefer it if he stayed until summer as without him, we're going down.

Wrong on both counts I'm afraid.

£45,000 Quoted offer from Saints for McGregor post summer window closure IIRC.

£50,000+ Isn't totally unrealistic for a first division player. In Clarke's case, for me there's no doubting his potential as a player who could compete in the SPL. I do believe however he would be well advised to remain at Clyde at least until the end of the season if not for the entire duration of his deal as he can learn a lot in that time. He's not the finished article yet. The first division can help him hone his game considerably, Pat should take it a step at a time.

Great player in his brief spell with raith. Why gordon "rub of the green" dalziel chose not to keep him, i'l never know.

How much do people think Pat Clarke is on at Clyde? About 400 pounds a week or so would that be correct? The problem is with Clyde, ourselves and nearly every first divison team apart From Dunfermline and St Johnstone is that some SPL team can come in and offer over 1000 pounds a week and a lot of the players will at the very least consider that.

No I'm not.

I'm 100% sure on the Imrie fee but I should have said, for the Clarke fee, it was around 10k. My mistake.

Not good enough as of yet. Still young mind so he should only improve and could be there one day.



Best defender in the league, certainly worth that I'd say. Poor comparison IMO.

TBF, Saints did spend £50,000 each on Willie McLaren and Michael Moore, so i wouldnt take our valuation of non-spl division players seriously!

To throw a spanner in the works here.

Can someone please explain where its mentioned??

Or is it in the imaginary tabloids?

Well I'll take a board member's word over you'res and we will agree to disagree.

a - You're not very good. That has an impact on the value of your players.
b - Despite having Clarke on a contract, the last time I checked Clyde don't have a pot to piss in. You're not in a strong selling position IMO.

We swapped him for Armand fucking One.

Is Boyd, Samaras, or Van big name a creative player?
If someone dangles a cheque in front of Pat he'll be off. Interesting to note than Hibs are interested - Mixu knows what he is capable of.

It was in The Sun

Also in the P&J (not that that means anything!!!!)

Scott Wilson is a tough, commanding centre back with the added ability of being able to actually pass the ball unlike Shimmin. If Shimmin calmed down the 'no-nonsense' approach and improved his ability to pass from A to B then fair enough, he would be up there with the top defenders in this league. However he is still raw and learning. Clarke isn't worth 100k and neither is Shimmin, we are in the Scottish First Division here so let's be a realistic.

With him being a Hibs fan too I would imagine that would be his preferred option out of those apparently interested in him.

Hope for our sake nothing comes of it this season at least. We need him. Simple as that.

Cheers

I think if his current form continues, then he may be worth a lot more to us come the end of the season, but it looks to me like the usual Scottish football rumour mill on overdrive. A player gets a run of goals over a couple of games and all of a sudden everyones looking at signing him. Im taking it with a pinch of salt.

I personally dont think he's worth 100k, not yet, but he will be.