{"id":23416,"date":"2025-04-16T00:51:08","date_gmt":"2025-04-16T00:51:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/23416\/"},"modified":"2025-04-16T00:51:08","modified_gmt":"2025-04-16T00:51:08","slug":"10m-former-liverpool-man-could-make-quick-return-just-one-year-after-anfield-exit","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/23416\/","title":{"rendered":"\u00a310m former Liverpool man could make quick return just one year after Anfield exit"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

When Liverpool and Red Bull Salzburg played out a modern Champions League classic at Anfield six years ago, the dominant force of Austrian football appeared to herald their arrival as a dark horse in European competition.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Their three goalscorers in that eventual 4-3 defeat on Merseyside, by the way, were the now-Wolves attacker Hwang Hee-Chan, future Liverpool<\/a> forward Takumi Minamino, and a certain blonde bombshell by the name of Erling Haaland.<\/p>\n

Those three included, no fewer than seven members of Salzburg\u2019s starting XI would end up playing in the Premier League. Dominik Szoboszlai<\/a> among them, having joined Liverpool in a \u00a360 million deal from the similarly Red Bull-run RB Leipzig.<\/p>\n

Half a decade later, however, Salzburg\u2019s reputation as elite developers of young talent, not to mention one of the most upwardly mobile clubs on the continent, has taken a considerable backwards step.<\/p>\n

Their run of ten successive Austrian Bundesliga titles was snapped last term by Sturm Graz. <\/p>\n

They are five points adrift of the reigning champions now, too. Salzburg look likely to miss out on the title for successive campaigns for the first time since their decade-and-a-half of domination began back in 2006.<\/p>\n

And the struggles of Bobby Clark<\/a> \u2013 the third most expensive signing in their history at \u00a310 million \u2013 rather sums up the sudden difficulties encountered by a club who are not quite getting it right these days off the pitch, never mind on it.<\/p>\n

\"PhotoPhoto by Rene Nijhuis\/MB Media\/Getty ImagesBobby Clark\u2019s father opens up on England return a year after Liverpool exit<\/p>\n

Bobby Clark\u2019s Liverpool departure certainly didn\u2019t go down well<\/a> with the Anfield faithful last summer. <\/p>\n

A fanbase bemused by the sale of a \u2018fantastic\u2019 young midfielder \u2013 to quote former Reds playmaker Joe Cole \u2013 who was expected to make the step up under Arne Slot. <\/p>\n

As Clark\u2019s difficult debut campaign in Austria comes trundling to a very underwhelming conclusion, however, Liverpool need not yet fear a Haaland or Szoboszlai-esque rise to prominence for the England Under-20 international.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Lee Clark, Bobby\u2019s father and a midfielder in his own playing days with Newcastle, Fulham and Sunderland, has been speaking to The Chronicle<\/a> this week.<\/p>\n

He claims that Clark was the subject of a number of approaches from \u2018various British clubs\u2019 during the January transfer window. The former Fulham skipper would also not be surprised if a return to the UK comes around sooner rather than later.<\/p>\n

\u201cI would imagine, at some time in his career, there will be opportunities to come back to the UK. And he\u2019d probably like to do that,\u201d Clark explains. \u201cI have not sat down and spoken with him on that, but it could be a possibility.<\/p>\n

\u201cWho knows? There was lots of speculation in January. I think there were a lot of offers put to Red Bull from various British clubs. But I don\u2019t think the deal was right for all the parties so it didn\u2019t happen.\u201d<\/p>\n

Pep Lijnders sacking did not help Clark at Red Bull Salzburg<\/p>\n

This is not, however, a classic case of a player struggling to settle in his new surroundings. Clark followed Jurgen Klopp\u2019s old assistant, Pep Lijnders, to Austria.<\/p>\n

Lijnders was sacked by Red Bull Salzburg<\/a> in December after just 27 games in charge. As such, Clark parted ways with the man who brought him to mainland Europe in the first place, and believed in him more than most.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ll see what goes on. He went to RB Salzburg because he had a lot of respect for Pep Lijnders,\u201d Lee Clark adds. \u201cHe lost his job and it can change the dynamics. But he has a long-term contract at Red Bull and we will see what happens next.<\/p>\n

\u201cBobby is enjoying life in Austria. He had a good run in the Champions League, from the eight games he started four, came on sub in two.<\/p>\n

\u201cUnfortunately, he missed out on the Real Madrid game as it was just after the winter break, and he\u2019d had an illness, so he only had two days training. He didn\u2019t get any time on the pitch at the Bernab\u00e9u and was only an unused sub.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis has still been an unbelievable experience for him, moving abroad and to a high profile club. [But] it has been hard. The manager he went and signed for in Pepijn Lijnders lost his job so it was the first time Bobby experienced that.\u201d<\/p>\n

While gaining European exposure against the likes of Bayer Leverkusen, Atletico Madrid and Paris Saint-Germain, Clark has started only seven Austrian Bundesliga matches while scoring just once for Salzburg.<\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"When Liverpool and Red Bull Salzburg played out a modern Champions League classic at Anfield six years ago,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":23417,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8815],"tags":[14722,748,393,4884,179,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-23416","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-liverpool","8":"tag-bobby-clark","9":"tag-britain","10":"tag-england","11":"tag-great-britain","12":"tag-liverpool","13":"tag-uk","14":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114344904868939982","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23416","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23416"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23416\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/23417"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23416"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23416"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23416"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}