In the past few years, English clubs – including Newcastle United – have begun to produce a high-level crop of midfield players. Birmingham City can take credit for the development of perhaps the world’s best player at the moment, Jude Bellingham. The 20-year-old now plays for Real Madrid, having played for Borussia Dortmund in between.
Declan Rice, now an Arsenal player, was brought through by West Ham United, after originally being in Chelsea’s academy, and the likes of Conor Gallagher and Mason Mount were successful products of the same famous Cobham academy, with the former an integral player at the Blues and the latter now at Manchester United.
More recently, Kobbie Mainoo is the young midfielder breaking through and becoming one of the top talents in the world. It has been a rapid rise for 18-year-old Mainoo, who made his full debut for England’s senior side just five months after his first Premier League start for Manchester United.
Newcastle youngster Lewis Miley is another exciting up-and-coming midfielder and has already played 17 games in the Premier League before his 18th birthday. Aside from Miley, Newcastle have some talented youngsters coming through in midfield, including 21-year-old Joe White, who returned to St James’ Park in January after his loan spell at Crewe Alexandra ended.
However, the Magpies may have let another young talent in midfield slip through the cracks, and depart the club for a major Premier League rival, where he is now making waves and contributing to first-team success.
Newcastle let a talented teen leave for peanuts
It was August 2021 when exciting talent Bobby Clark left Newcastle to join Premier League rivals Liverpool. According to Lee Ryder of The Chronicle Live, the transfer was swiftly completed by the Reds, who convinced Clark to move to Anfield rather than sign a scholarship with the Magpies.
It will surely disappoint Newcastle fans, who would no doubt have wanted Clark to follow in his father’s footsteps and pull on the famous black and white stripes at St James’ Park. The youngster’s father is Toon legend Lee Clark, who made 260 appearances for the club across two spells in both the 1990s and early 2000s.
The fee Liverpool paid for Clark is rumoured to be in the region of £1.5m, and whilst it may seem a lot on a young player, there is no denying his talent. After all, the aforementioned Ryder said he reminded the reporter of a “young Paul Gascoigne.”
Sadly for those in the north east, according to Clark’s father, he decided to join the Merseyside club due to the amount of knowledge they already had about him as a footballer, and “because one day they believed he could be a first-team player for Liverpool”.
How Clark and Miley compare
It is fair to say that the opportunities Miley has had this season may have also befallen Clark had the Liverpool man decided to stay at St James’ Park all of those years ago.
Miley’s 17 games in the Premier League this term originally came due to an injury crisis, but have now been fully deserved. As Matthew Robson said on Newcastle Fan website The Mag, “No matter who he has been up against, Lewis Miley hasn’t looked out of place”.
Clark’s job is harder. He has to break into a settled Liverpool midfield with the likes of Alexis Mac Allister, Curtis Jones and Dominik Szoboszlai all ahead of him. However, he has played 14 times for Liverpool so far and scored his first goal against Sparta Prague in the Europa League this season, as well as registering two assists, one in the Europa League and one in the FA Cup.
As a footballer, Miley and Clark are not too dissimilar. They are busy midfielders, of a similar profile, excelling in the final third although are both more than capable of playing in all phases, and are not afraid of getting on the ball and looking to impact the game.
Miley averages 50 touches per 90 minutes this season, as per Fbref, and in comparison, Clark averages 47 touches per 90 minutes in the Europa League, according to Sofascore. This shows impressive maturity and bravery in their game, which is rare in midfielders so young.
The pair look after the ball well when in possession, with Miley averaging a pass accuracy of 84% in the top-flight according to Sofascore, and Clark just slightly worse at 78%, although with a much smaller sample size. They enjoy getting on the ball in deeper areas, pulling the strings and kickstarting attacks, before crashing the box looking to get on the end of crosses.
It will certainly frustrate Newcastle that they failed to keep hold of 19-year-old Clark, who is now beginning to break into Liverpool’s first team and show similar levels of talent to Miley. If things had turned out differently, he could’ve helped Newcastle through their injury crisis this season, rather than becoming a breakout star at Anfield.
