{"id":563486,"date":"2020-08-26T06:14:31","date_gmt":"2020-08-26T10:14:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonfootball.com\/?p=563486"},"modified":"2020-08-26T06:14:31","modified_gmt":"2020-08-26T10:14:31","slug":"brighton-hove-albions-matt-clarke-rejoins-derby-county-on-loan","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/2020\/08\/26\/brighton-hove-albions-matt-clarke-rejoins-derby-county-on-loan\/","title":{"rendered":"Brighton & Hove Albion’s Matt Clarke Rejoins Derby County on Loan"},"content":{"rendered":"

Derby County have confirmed the signing of Brighton & Hove Albion<\/a> defender Matt Clarke<\/a> on a season-long loan. The 23-year-old rejoins the Rams following a successful loan spell last campaign.<\/p>\n

Matt Clarke Rejoins Derby County on Season-Long Loan<\/h2>\n

Second Spell at Pride Park for Player of the Year Clarke<\/h3>\n

Brighton defender Clarke has agreed to return on loan to Derby County for the 2020\/21 season. The Englishman won the club’s Player of the Year award during his loan spell last season.<\/p>\n

He featured 37 times for Phillip Cocu<\/a>‘s side last year – not missing a minute of Championship football since December 30th.<\/p>\n

The Derby boss reacted to the deal, by telling the club website<\/a>: “I\u00a0am extremely pleased that we have got Matt Clarke back after the great season he had with us.<\/p>\n

“Especially in the second half of last season, he was excellent and the progress he made was huge after he had to adapt to a new way of playing with us.”<\/p>\n

Derby narrowly missed out on the play-offs, eventually finishing tenth, but would’ve struggled to challenge whatsoever without Clarke’s consistent defensive performances.<\/p>\n

A return looked on the cards after Brighton bolstered their defence this summer. The Seagulls have welcomed Ajax defender<\/a> Joel Veltman<\/a> to the club alongside Ben White, who returned from his loan spell with Leeds United<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Clarke High on Shortlist for Derby County<\/h3>\n

Derby were very keen for the 23-year-old to return to the club after his performances last season. Assured and calm on the ball, Clarke ticks the box of being a left-sided centre back to pair alongside either Andre Wisdom<\/a>, Mike te Wierik<\/a> or Curtis Davies<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The ex-Portsmouth man, who picked up Player of the Year awards in both of his last two seasons at the League One<\/a> side, clearly has many admirers, with Derby at the top of that list.<\/p>\n

A loan deal appears to work well for both clubs too. For Brighton, it gives them another year to decide if Clarke fits into the first-team picture at the AMEX; whilst Derby will be hoping that it will make them a close second-choice should he wish to move on from the South coast side next summer.<\/p>\n

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Derby County have confirmed the signing of Brighton & Hove Albion defender Matt Clarke on a season-long loan. The 23-year-old rejoins the Rams following a successful loan spell last campaign. Matt Clarke Rejoins Derby County on Season-Long Loan Second Spell at Pride Park for Player of the Year Clarke Brighton defender Clarke has agreed to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3325,"featured_media":563511,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[32,1265,33,30,28],"tags":[1590,2502,695,239,6481,40],"class_list":["post-563486","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-league-football","category-brighton-and-hove-albion","category-championship","category-news","category-transfers","tag-brighton","tag-brighton-hove-albion","tag-derby-county","tag-efl-championship","tag-matt-clarke","tag-premier-league"],"modified_by":"Pete Trifunovic","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/563486","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3325"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=563486"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/563486\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/563511"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=563486"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=563486"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=563486"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}