Tottenham Hotspur have been a real force in the Premier League this season, and while their form has taken a slight hit as of late, they'll undoubtedly be battling it for the Champions League places until the bitter end.

Ange Postecoglou has taken a side that limped to a seventh-place finish last year, lost arguably their greatest-ever player in the summer, and has turned them into one of the most exciting teams in Europe.

That said, with the goals not coming quite as easily since the turn of the year, the Australian might be wishing that Daniel Levy and Co didn't sanction the £750k sale of a player who has been tearing it up in the Championship for the last couple of years, as he could've been a monster under the tutelage of the former Celtic boss.

Jack Clarke's Tottenham transfer

Tottenham signed the dynamic winger Jack Clarke from Leeds United in July 2019 for a fee believed to be around £8.5m before sending him back on loan for the 2019/20 season, although a lack of game time saw him move to Queens Park Rangers in January.

Over the next two seasons, the York-born gem would spend time bouncing between the youth sides at Tottenham and loan moves to Stoke City and Sunderland. Luckily, the latter ended up being quite successful, and he was eventually sold to the Black Cats in July 2022 for a fee that is reported to have been only £750k.

However, the deal also included a considerable sell-on clause of potentially up to 50%, which could prove to be savvy business if the 23-year-old is sold for the price that is being reported.

In all, the 5 foot 11 winger made just four appearances for Spurs' first team, 26 for the youth teams, and a combined 21 between QPR and Stoke when he finally left for the Stadium of Light.

At the time, it just looked like a transfer that didn't work out, and by cutting their losses, the north Londoners did the right thing – oh, how things have changed.

Jack Clarke's valuation at Sunderland

In his first season as an official Sunderland player, Clarke scored a reasonably impressive 11 goals and provided 14 assists in his 50 appearances, which was enough to help the side reach the Championship Play-Off semi-finals in their first season back.

However, this season, the young "diamond", as former manager Tony Mowbray described him, has seriously upped his game and already has 15 goals and four assists to his name in just 35 appearances, which is all the more impressive considering that Sunderland are currently 22 points off the automatic promotion places.

With his consistently impressive performances in the Championship, the 23-year-old has understandably caught the eye of several Premier League clubs in recent months, with The Standard reporting that Burnley saw a £15m bid turned down just last month.

The report revealed it would take an offer of around £20m to secure his exit from the northeast, which would be around £19.25m more than Sunderland paid Tottenham in 2022 – or a 2566% increase.

While Spurs could be set to make up to £10m from any potential deal, which is brilliant from a financial point of view, you can't help but wonder if Clarke would've been better off staying in north London.

With Son producing 11 of his 18 goal involvements as a centre-forward, Timo Werner providing just two assists in six appearances, and Brennan Johnson returning just two goal involvements in seven games on the left, there is every chance the Sunderland ace could've made that position his own this year.

Ultimately, he's not a Tottenham player anymore, and the potential sell-on could be a nice earner for the club.

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However, seeing just what Postecoglou could have done with Clarke in the Premier League would have been intriguing indeed.