Sheffield United managed to resurrect £750k Wolves flop’s career: View | OneFootball

Chris Wilder managed to get the most out of Leon Clarke during his time at Bramall Lane

When you look up a footballer’s club history, and you have to scroll numerous times, you know you have got something of a nomad on your hands.

That is exactly the case with Leon Clarke, who featured for no fewer than 20 clubs across his career, with more than one stint at a number of those sides to boot.

As you can imagine, some of those were more successful than others, with the frontman failing to see eye to eye with more than one manager throughout his playing days.

But one boss who got the perfect tune out of him was Chris Wilder, who reaped the rewards of taking a punt on him with Sheffield United back in 2016, with the forward rediscovering some of the form that he had shown in his earlier years.

Leon Clarke fails to make the grade at Wolverhampton Wanderers in two separate spells

After coming up through the ranks at Wolverhampton Wanderers, Clarke struggled to make much of an impact during his time at Molineux, with just 13 goals in 74 league appearances for the Old Gold.

While his performances on the pitch were mostly forgettable, the striker was already making a name for himself for his attitude and antics, with the home crowd not taking too well to being ’shhhed’ after scoring against Plymouth Argyle in 2006.

With that bridge seemingly burned, a similarly fruitless spell with Sheffield Wednesday followed, before QPR, Preston North End and Swindon Town all also failed to get the most out of the attacker.

Spells at Chesterfield and Scunthorpe United were the most promising during that spell, before 23 goals in 34 games for Coventry City teased Wolves into offering the forward a return to the Black Country in January 2014.

Having been happy enough to get him off the books seven years before, the return to his first club looked like being something of a moment of retribution for Clarke, but it wasn’t long after his reported £750,000 move that he was in the bad books again.

Once again, Clarke failed to fire while with Wolves, with just a single strike as they clambered themselves out of the third tier, before two more goals in the Championship came ahead of once again being shipped out to Wigan.

Such was his temperamental nature at the time, it was a given that the frontman would thrive as soon as he left Molineux once again, and so it proved at Bury, where he thrived off being the main man at Gigg Lane with a 15-goal season to follow.

Sheffield United’s Leon Clark gamble comes up trumps

By now, Clarke’s reputation was preceding itself, and there would have been few managers who were willing to take a chance on a player who could just as likely go a season without a goal than banging 20 in the next campaign.

But Chris Wilder is no ordinary manager, and where everybody else saw a busted flush, he saw gold, and the Blades boss wasted no time in snapping the frontman up as they looked to finally escape League One.

After five straight seasons in the third tier, 16/17 was the one where it all clicked for the Steel City outfit, as they swept aside all that came before them to earn a return to the Championship, with Clarke contributing seven goals towards that ultimate goal, with a run of six goals in five games helping them get over the line in April.

While the step-up to the Championship has often proved to be the undoing of the frontman, Wilder seemed to have a game plan ready to make the most of his frontman’s talents, as he worked in tandem with Billy Sharp to take the league by storm.

With 19 goals the following campaign, Clarke was the Blades’ top scorer, with an amazing four-goal haul against Hull City summing up the confidence of a man who seemed to be at the peak of his powers.

The burly striker was battering defenders out of his way to get himself on the scoresheet, with a determined look in his eye that had previously been lacking at other stages of his career, with Bramall Lane bouncing as a result.

Alas, after that goal-laden campaign, it wasn’t long before the attacker was on his way out of the club, with a loan stint at Wigan Athletic coming the following January, after just three league goals up to that point.

Returning to form, Clarke exited Bramall Lane in September 2020, before seeing out his professional career with stints at Shrewsbury Town, Bristol Rovers and Hartlepool United.

Some might say a wasted talent, but those that were there when he was burning the brightest will always remember how unplayable he was on his day.