Clare a surprise but new signing seems to fit bill
MIDFIELDER SEAN TICKS THE ‘YOUNG AND HUNGRY’ BOX
FILE Sean Clare in the “didn’t see that one coming” box, although it is a box that is fairly full when it comes to Jimmy Floyd Hasselbaink’s transfer dealings.
Just about the only predictable transfer you could associate with Hasselbaink around his Burton Albion work is when he came back to take Nasser El Khayati with him to Queens Park Rangers.
El Khayati had originally been the great “rabbit out of a hat” by Hasselbaink when he arrived as a complete unknown from the Dutch third division, immediately wowed Burton supporters and became the final piece in the promotion jigsaw in the 2014-15 season.
Clare is at least a little better known than El Khayati was then and if he has anything like the impact, he’ll do nicely.
He can also be filed, we hope, in the “young and hungry” category.
I am not jumping the gun here, not least because this is, for now, only a loan deal, but Clare is only a year younger now than Lucas Akins was when he signed for the Brewers.
Akins was only a little more experienced and was looking for a club where he could settle after an early career which had, like Clare, seen him head to Scotland at one point.
Clearly, Hasselbaink has been aware of Clare for a while and it is equally clear from what we have seen in less than two weeks that the new Burton manager had not taken his eye off what was going on in the wider world of football while he was sitting in a warm studio talking about the Premier League on TV. He is a student of the game.
Clare comes to Burton as a central midfielder. That is how he sees himself and how Hasselbaink says he plans to use him, although the player’s versatility will not hurt – it seems he can play anywhere on the right.
Yet he had not been playing in central midfield. The bulk of his career appearances, 71 out of 135, have been with Hearts since he moved there from Sheffield Wednesday in 2018.
It seems, latterly, that Clare was playing at right-back for Hearts and that is where Karl Robinson saw him playing when he signed him on a three-year deal for Oxford United in the summer.
Both manager and player now say that the idea did not work out and that is why Clare finds himself at Burton, looking to kickstart his career with games in his preferred position. Clare’s interview with the Brewers’ website was telling.
“I went to Oxford kind of as a right-back project,” he said. “Things didn’t work out as me and the manager wanted, so I wanted to come out and get some game time in a position I’m familiar with, centre midfield.
“The gaffer sees me as a centremid and that’s how I see myself. He and his assistant, Dino Maamria, have instilled a lot of belief in me. “It’s really important to play games, at any age but especially at my age. The gaffer says I’ll get opportunities and it’s down to me to keep the shirt. That’s all you can ask for as a player.”
There was a brief insight, too, into what is happening on the training ground.
“Training was tough but good,” said Clare after his first session on Tuesday.
“All the stuff he is working on is specific to what we need to do in the games and how we need to play.
“From seeing not all the teams but a lot of teams in League One, I can see what he is trying to do and how it can help us move up the table.”
Oxford manager Karl Robinson explained how he saw what had happened with Clare.
“We felt (his signing) was a decision we made for all the right reasons,” he said.
“Short term, it’s obviously not worked and I’ve said that. Maybe confidence can have another implication on poor performance.
“You’d openly say he’s had the backing from all of us at the club.
“They (Burton) need an attacking midfield player, so we thought it was the right decision and financially it worked for us.
“He’s not out of the club but he’s trying to rebuild himself.”
The platform is there then for Clare and it will be interesting to see
who makes way for him if he goes straight into the starting line-up. There are certainly plenty of options.
The move to bring Stephen Quinn off the bench against Gillingham to provide an experienced head in a frantic last few minutes looked sound and perhaps that will now be Quinn’s role, rather than starting him and seeing how long he can last.
Kieran Wallace was used as a holding midfielder with a view to helping the centre-halves combat Gillingham’s aerial bombardment and that largely worked, especially in the first half, while the shifts put in by Joe Powell and Ryan Edwards in the centre were excellent.
With Owen Gallacher brought in at left-back, Colin Daniel played one further forward at left midfield but did not, from there, get in as many crosses as he has usually done from full-back.
Might we see Powell deployed on the left, with Clare in the middle?
The manager talked about having more “legs” in midfield and in theory there would certainly be plenty of them with Edwards and Clare in there together – surely it will be better to keep Edwards, with his phenomenal work-rate, in the middle, rather than playing on the right, as he often was earlier in the season?
All of this leaves Ciaran Gilligan back on the bench.
Then there is also the possibility that Clare has been brought in because Hasselbaink is aware of who might depart before the transfer window closes.
We will have to wait and see on that one but, for now, Clare looks the right sort of addition on paper.
I went to Oxford kind of as a right-back project. Things didn’t work out as we wanted.
Sean Clare