McAnthony: How we got the best out of Clarke-Harris
PETERBOROUGH United owner Darragh MacAnthony has explained how he was able to unlock new levels from Jonson Clarke-Harris after buying him from Bristol Rovers.
The former Gas striker moved to London Road in August and has been a roaring success, scooping the golden boot and the League One player of the season prize as his 31 goals fired Posh to promotion.
Clarke-Harris earned Rovers an initial fee of £1.25 million plus addons, and the Gas hold a 20 per cent sell on clause for a player tipped for a big-money move this summer.
Speaking on his Hard Truth podcast, MacAnthony explained how he identified Clarke-Harris as the successor to Ivan Toney at Peterborough after his move to Brentford.
“Jonson Clarke-Harris was the best player in the league by a mile,” he said. “When I had the recruitment meeting last year and we were selling Ivan, I’d gone through Jonson’s numbers for the previous two years, where he came good in two seasons at Bristol Rovers.
“I did a statistical analysis and compared it to Ivan Toney, because I knew we’d have exactly the same team, bar Ivan. I knew the team that created x-amount of chances for Ivan could create x-amount of chances for Jonson Clarke-Harris.
“What the analysis gave me was that Clarke-Harris was a 23 per cent better finisher than Ivan, which in my mind meant that if we created the same amount of chances, he would score 23 per cent more goals than Ivan, and I knew there were some key fundamentals there.”
Clarke-Harris scored 27 goals in 49 games across an 18-month spell at the Memorial Stadium, but the
26-year-old had problems with niggling injuries and he returned to his final pre-season at the club out of shape. But MacAnthony knew there was a top striker in there and, once striking a deal with Rovers owner Wael Al-Qadi, he wasted no time in getting the player fit.
He continued: “There were some rows in the recruitment meetings. I was strong on it and there were a couple of dissents. There were a couple of things I needed to get right. One was Jonno had never played 40 league games in a season, he’d always go 35-36 but never quite played 40-45, so I needed to get his body right.
“Secondly, we needed to get 10
pounds off him. There were some key things we had to get right to manage the season. He lost the weight. He came in quite late and he was carrying a bit of timber. Fair play to the boy, he lost the weight quickly and he bought into the training programme.
“We had his body analysed and he had an expensive medical in London. There was nothing wrong with him, it was just how do we keep him fit and how do we have the same style we had with Ivan and make sure Jonno bought into that? It was about gelling that together.
“If you asked me at the time, I was 75 per cent certain he’d win the golden boot. You’re never 100 per cent, but I was pretty certain we had the right character with the right mentality and the right squad around him.”
MacAnthony believes ClarkeHarris’ fitness levels early in the season, which were criticised by manager Darren Ferguson, have motivated the player to prove people wrong this summer.
“A really good signing and I’m delighted for him,” MacAnthony said. “Right now, he’s doing 13 miles a day on the bike getting fit, because he wasn’t fit when he came in last season late, and I think he wants to prove to everyone that he can be a top, top striker.”