Sunderland have sent scouts to watch a ‘wonderful’ attacker who is currently impressing in League One.
Sunderland are coming to the end of their turbulent second season in the Championship and will now have to face the reality of losing Jack Clarke.
The winger has netted 15 goals this term and has attracted plenty of attention from the Premier League and beyond, with Lazio, West Ham and Brentford just some of the clubs interested in his signature.
Clarke is yet to put pen to paper on a new contract at the Stadium of Light and many supporters have now come to terms with the fact he is likely to leave the club this summer.
The Black Cats would have had to win promotion to tempt Clarke the stay, but their mid-table position means they could cash in on a hefty fee for his departure.
It will be incredibly hard to replace such a talented player on Wearside, but it appears Sunderland are already on the hunt for a new attacker ahead of the transfer window opening in a couple of months.
Sunderland target Newcastle Utd star’s brother
According to The Sun, Sunderland are one of six clubs who sent scouts to watch Oxford United’s Josh Murphy during their 5-0 win over Peterborough United at the weekend.
Josh – brother of Newcastle United’s Jacob Murphy – joined the League One outfit from Cardiff City in 2022.
He failed to score during his first campaign at the Kassam Stadium, but has enjoyed more success recently, netting six goals and providing three assists in his last 12 games.
The U’s now sit sixth in the third tier and will be looking to win promotion this season, but face losing Murphy if they can’t achieve their goal.
The 29-year-old will see his contract expire this summer and could leave on a free transfer, with Sunderland joining Southampton, West Brom, QPR, Hull City and Minnesota in their interest.
U’s boss Des Buckingham labelled him a ‘wonderful player’ after he bagged three goal contributions at the weekend, which may have tempted a number of scouts in attendance to keep him on their radar.
Sunderland can do so much better than Josh Murphy
Josh Murphy would be an unbelievably underwhelming signing – and that’s not just because of the controversy it would cause with his brother.
The winger has enjoyed a brilliant second half of the season, but that seems to be all he has done of note for quite a while.
Murphy previously spent most of his career in the Championship, but has only managed 24 goals in 199 appearances in the second tier.
Since leaving Norwich in 2018, Murphy scored only ten goals in 102 league matches – though that did include a season in the Premier League.
The attacker has nowhere near the goalscoring ability of Clarke and certainly wouldn’t fill that void that would be left by our current star man.
He is also 29 years old, and while we are hoping the club take a different approach to the transfer market now, bringing in a League One winger who isn’t going to get much better isn’t very promising.
I would hope we would avoid such a transfer, especially when we will have so much money to replace Clarke with that could go elsewhere.