Alan Hutton has suggested that his former Aston Villa team-mate Ciaran Clark will have to leave Newcastle United unless he can get a consistent run of game-time in Steve Bruce’s first-team.
Clark, 30, had not played once in the Premier League all season until he was thrown into Bruce’s back-three for the 1-0 win against Manchester United on October 6.
The ex-Villan has since started the last two league matches for the Magpies and does not look set to lose his spot any time soon.
However Hutton has claimed that with Clark at the age that he is, he needs to ensure that he is getting this level of game-time consistently otherwise he may have to pack his bags and quit St James’ Park.
“Sometimes you need a change of manager or something happens to fall in your favour to give you the chance you probably deserve. I hope he does well because I believe he’s a very good player,” the pundit told Football Insider.
“It’s a difficult one. When he left he signed a five-year deal so he’s obviously moved everything up there and got settle so he maybe found it difficult to up sticks and leave again. The only problem is that he’s at an age where he should be playing week in, week out.
“It’s different if you’re 21, 22 and you’re thinking: ‘I’ll wait about for a couple of seasons,’ but when you start going 26, 27, 28, 29, you need to be playing every week. I hope he can get a run and maybe that’s him in the team. If not, he’s maybe going to have to look to leave.”
OPINION
Clark has done very well for Newcastle in the last few weeks but when the season started, people would not have expected him to play much of a role at all in Bruce’s squad this season. The £35,000-a-week [Spotrac] defender came into the side after the 5-0 defeat at Leicester and has since helped the Magpies keep a clean sheet in their 1-0 win against Manchester United and help keep the score respectable in the 1-0 loss away at Chelsea. Clark’s done well and at the moment he seems to be undroppable. Hutton says that his former team-mate might have to quit Newcastle, but that seems to be a bit presumptuous. Does Hutton know what Bruce’s plans are? Does Hutton knows what Clark has planned for himself? The 30-year-old’s deal does not expire until the end of next season so at the moment, he is probably focusing fully on his job in hand at St James’ Park.
