'He’d have scored a half century of goals!' - Peterborough United chief Darragh MacAnthony makes Jonson Clarke-Harris Sunderland goal prediction

Posh won promotion to the Championship with Clarke-Harris a key factor, he top scored with 31 League One goals last season.

MacAnthony, speaking on his ‘Hard Truth’ podcast, has hailed his impact and claimed – perhaps with tongue in cheek – that the striker would have scored 50 goals for Sunderland in the third tier last season.

“We were 15th in crossing stats last season and Jonno still scored 33 goals,” MacAnthony said. “Put him in that Sunderland team with all the crosses they deliver and he’d have scored a half century of goals!

“Jonno was comfortably the best player in League One last season. Ireland checked to see if he had any Irish grandparents recently!

“I knew what we were getting with Jonno. We were going into last season with pretty much the same as the season before, but without Ivan and the stats told me Jonno was a 23% better finisher. I was 75% certain he would win the League One golden boot.

“There were buts as he’d never played 40 games in a season before so we had to get his body right and fair play to him he got in shape very quickly. The rest was already there. He had the right character, the right mentality and the right squad around him.

“But Jonno is not resting on his laurels. He’s been cycling 13 miles a day in order to get fitter. We might play a pressing game next season and Jonno has never had to do that, so he’s taken it on himself to get in even better shape. That’s the sort of commitment I want to see.”

Sunderland are in the middle of another summer rebuild with several players having been released including Grant Leadbitter, Max Power and Josh Scowen.

The squad are currently enjoying their summer break but it won’t be long before they are back in action, Sunderland face Spennymoor Town on Saturday July 3 in their opening pre-season game.

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