Harry Clarke signs on loan
Ipswich Town’s Harry Clarke became Nathan Jones’ first January window signing today. The versatile 24-year-old defender has signed on loan until the end of the season.
Clarke can cover the range of roles at the right of the defence and hopefully signals the beginning of a busy week at Sparrows Lane.
Suffolk born, Clarke came through Arsenal’s academy and spent a few seasons out on loan before signing for boyhood club Ipswich in 2023. He was then pivotal in the Tractor Boy’s back to back promotions and featured 7 times in the Premier League before joining Sheffield United on loan for the second half of last season.
Clarke got injured for the Blades in April and has since been working back to fitness, but is now unable to break into Ipswich’s first eleven.
Clarke has made 151 first-team appearances and played in all four of England’s top division and his contract with the East Anglian club runs until this summer but Ipswich retain an option to extend by a further 12 months.
There is no doubting Clarke’s pedigree and his defensive utility could be invaluable to Nathan Jones.
Welcome to SE7 Harry.
Yeah, Good luck, and as played a lot in the Championship, but again a new body in the building, but he has also been injury-prone since the end of last season, and the pun intended a good fit then for CAFC
The game’s afoot:
Follow your spirit, and upon this charge
Cry ‘God for Matt Godden, Charlton, and the valley !’
(King Henry, Act 3 Scene 1)
Harry Clarke has mostly positive comments from the Ipswich fan base, especially for the games he played in their promotion season to the Premiership. Lets hope he can bring some of that form to us for the next five months…..and of course keep injury free.
We can only hope that Clarke is an improvement on our last 6 signings from Ipswich, who were : Ahadme, Ladapo, Camara, Penney, Fraser and Vega……Well, Harry has to be an improvement on that bunch!
Let’s hope more Bent & Holland than Ladapo and Penny. 🙏
Yes, Bent & Holland were very fine players who were very much at home in the Premier League and both did an excellent job for us…….Unfortunately that was some time ago. Don’t see us being able to bring in that calibre of player for quite some time yet……but as always : we live in hope.
Of that bunch, Camara looked a decent player but suffered from injury and Fraser has some good moments.
Seems that he’s a good player but unfortunately gets injured a lot.He can only improve the squad but we still need to bring in some players to keep us in this league.
I really hope Clarke is successful during his loan and contributes to improvements seen already.
Think it will be just another bench warmer just like hernandez and rousillion there must be a reason why Ipswich wants him out on loan just trying to get him game time i suppose I ll say again there is always kanu we could recall mbick and casey who won’t even be given a chance for some reason peace everybody COYR
Precisely, cliffb50 100% agree with you and also Wayne
Appears a very good player when fit, but again has hardly played since his last injury, so no real knowing how he will fair, lets hope very well. But why do Charlton consistently keep getting in injury prone players? NJ has already brought in Burke for a sizeable fee and big wages from Luton,who has hardly played in the last three seasons and has already been injured twice since arriving and we will be lucky if we get more than 10 games out of him this season? I can never understand why the Owners of Charlton, whoever they are, keep allowing these continual signings of known injury prone players, which while they may be very good when able to play, but in fact are mostly a complete waste of time and money spent, for the amount of games they play, if any! Its similar to a Company employing someone in an office or elsewhere, who is known to be off sick all the time, you wouldn’t employ them, but then the Councils always seem to employ these type of people! 🙂
Onto another issue, does anyone know if Hernandez & Roussillan are still with us, both another complete waste of space and money, as they are still showing in the Charlton First team?
From what I have heard Rousillion is not upto it , being struggling in the U21’s games. Both were short-term deals so probably will be released after their contracts expire.
I’m worried more about his match fitness than actual fitness.
I’m sure he’s had a medical and passed it, but it’s a tough ask to come into a team at this level when you haven’t played all season. Playing RWB means getting up and down the pitch a fair bit and he’ll be up against players who’ve got a fair bit of football under their belt.
But he brings a lot of experience at this level so that’s a positive.
I did see something on a social media channel that suggested Josh Edwards was in training so hopefully he’s not far away and Matt Godden too should be ready soon.
We do seem to have something of a habit of signing players on loan who either cannot make the grade or get frequently injured.