Sunderland: Clarke-Harris may be Toney 2.0

The January switch window is nearly midway by completion and Sunderland are but to exchange Ellis Simms on the Stadium of Mild.

Tony Mowbray misplaced considered one of his frontline choices on the prime finish of the pitch as Premier League facet Everton opted to recall the quantity 9 initially of the month.

This has left the Black Cats able the place they’re now scrambling to exchange a participant they could have thought they might have till the top of the season, at the very least.

When requested if he would favor a mortgage or a everlasting signing in that place, Mowbray said:

“I feel each are applicable. We do have to try to signal our personal gamers however to assist our scenario a mortgage isn’t a foul possibility both.

“I do suppose the precedence is to signal footballers that we expect are the suitable high quality to assist the membership going ahead, as a result of loans clearly return to their father or mother golf equipment.”

Earlier this month, it was reported that Sunderland are exhibiting an curiosity in prolific Peterborough centre-forward Jonson Clarke-Harris.

Would Clarke-Harris be a very good signing?

Posh boss Darren Ferguson has revealed that the striker, who journalist Luke Flanagan hailed as “dangerous“, shall be offered if a suggestion of £5m got here in.

While it stays to be seen whether or not or not the Black Cats can be prepared to pay that charge, Kristjaan Speakman might land the membership’s personal model of Ivan Toney by signing the 28-year-old, who Ferguson as soon as dubbed a “winner“.

Toney, who has scored 12 targets in 16 Premier League matches this season, burst onto the scene with Peterborough by scoring 24 targets in 32 League One video games through the 2019/20 marketing campaign – after scoring 16 in 44 the earlier 12 months.

The striker then earned himself a transfer to Championship facet Brentford and plundered a whopping 31 targets in 45 matches for the Bees on their strategy to promotion to the top-flight.

Clarke-Harris changed Toney at Peterborough for the 2020/21 marketing campaign and produced a shocking season as he scored 31 targets in 45 outings in League One – matching the Brentford gem’s second-division tally.

Nevertheless, he was unable to copy the England worldwide’s Championship type as he scored 12 occasions in 41 video games, though his facet have been relegated from the league as an alternative of difficult for promotion – probably limiting his goalscoring potential.

Clarke-Harris, who has scored 13 targets in 24 third-tier outings this time period, has proven that he has the potential to be a prolific scorer within the Championship, as Toney was, and enjoying for a staff competing for the play-offs might be the platform he wants with the intention to showcase it.

Due to this fact, Sunderland, who’re one level off the highest six, might land their very own model of the Brentford marksman by bringing the Peterborough attacker in to exchange Simms.