Manchester City are leading the Premier League scramble to sign Leeds United sensation Jack Clarke, according to the Sun.
The newspaper claim City manager Pep Guardiola is keen on the 18-year-old winger and contact has been made with United but he has been told by the Championship outfit he is not for sale and they have no intention of letting him go.
The Sun report Southampton are also eager to land Clarke, but Leeds manager Marcelo Bielsa is “determined to keep hold of” the club’s highly-rated academy product.
OPINION
The more Leeds fans see of Clarke, they more they are convinced the club have a sensational talent on their hands. The teenager, who only turned 18 last November, has made the step up to first-team football look a ridiculously easy one in recent months and has been no less effective as an impact substitute for the Championship leaders than he was while running amok for the club’s Under-23s earlier in the campaign. Clarke has a contract that runs until the summer of 2021, but his new status as a first teamer means he appears to want a new one. Leeds would prefer to wait until the end of the season, confident he is already tied down. However, that would be ignoring the astounding impact he has made of late, scoring two goals and supplying two assists in Championship matches despite making only one start in the competition. It is a measure of Clarke’s talent that the big guns are looking closely at him, and there more respected and effective at getting what they want than Man City and their manager Guardiola.