"Speaks for itself" - Ipswich Town winger Jack Clarke backed to repeat Sunderland antics in 2025-26 Championship | OneFootball

Clarke was a star in the second tier for Sunderland, but it's fair to say he's got a lot to prove next season back in the Championship...

This article is part of Football League World’s ‘Terrace Talk‘ series, which provides personal opinions from our FLW Fan Pundits regarding the latest breaking news, teams, players, managers, potential signings and more…

Ipswich Town fought valiantly in the Premier League this season, but ultimately they did not pick up enough points to retain their spot for the 2025-26 season.

The Tractor Boys, with just three games to go until their campaign is complete, have won just four times, although they have taken the scalps of both Tottenham Hotspur and Chelsea as part of those.

Kieran McKenna was unable to get any form of consistency out of his squad though, and it's one that was expensively assembled over the summer and January.

Ipswich Town: Jack Clarke tipped to shine amid Tractor Boys relegation

One of Ipswich's big-money summer deals was to bring Sunderland attacker Jack Clarke to Portman Road, with McKenna paying £15 million for the ex-Leeds United and Tottenham man.

There was hope that Clarke would be able to make the step up to the top flight of English football easily, but the 24-year-old has struggled at times, especially with an adapted role where he doesn't play as wide as he did at the Stadium of Light.

Going into the final handful of top flight matches, Clarke is still yet to score in league action for Ipswich, but he has notched four assists despite starting just 11 times in his 29 outings.

And when asked as to whether Clarke is going to live up to his price tag and hype next season after not exactly setting the world alight in the top flight, FLW's Tractor Boys fan pundit Adam Wilkin thinks that the dynamic winger could actually prove to be one of the club's leading players in 2025-26 now he is dropping down a level.

"I think Jack Clarke could be one of, if not our best player next season," Adam told FLW.

"He found it tough at the start, because at Sunderland he played high and wide on the left, which is where in our system Leif Davis likes to play, and in those early games they were both in almost exactly the same position, trying to do exactly the same thing.

"So, the first three to four months I think he had to adapt his game, and the first half of the season he probably didn't play as much. Sammie Szmodics was also playing then and scoring goals, and it's hard to kind of displace someone in that situation.

"He may not have scored a goal, but he is our top assister in the Premier League with four - a lot of those have come towards the end of the season, and in the last third of the season I think he's looked like the player we thought we were signing at the start of the season.

"Whether that's the step up to the Premier League, whether that's the adjustment to the system and what he's being asked to do, but I think he's probably one of the signings from last season that I have the most hope for next year, and obviously his record at Sunderland last year speaks for itself.

"So, hopefully he can hit similar sort of numbers, and I think he will probably be our first choice in that 'left 10' role."

Jack Clarke could dominate Championship if replicating Sunderland performances for Ipswich Town

There was a reason as to why Clarke went for the fee he did, and that was down to how well he performed for Sunderland in 2023-24.

He gave Championship full-backs a real nightmare at the best of times, and he was well worth the step up to the Premier League - it just hasn't happened in the way he would've envisioned it to though.

There will be many reasons for that, including not exactly playing the role he has been used to when with the Black Cats, but when Ipswich go down to the Championship next season, they will be one of the favourites instead of an underdog, and they will likely be more of an attacking, front-footed force.