Football
Leon Clarke makes Sky Blues move permanent

Buy photos » Mark Robins is pleased to have signed striker Leon Clarke. Photo by Jon Mullis (www.buyphotos247.com)

MARK Robins is confident recent signing Leon Clarke can step into David McGoldrick shoes and fire the Sky Blues to promotion.

The 27-year-old put pen-to-paper on a two-and-a-half-year deal at the Ricoh Arena after initially joining on a 28-day loan deal from Charlton Athletic on New Year’s Day.

Clarke spent the first half of the 2012/13 campaign on loan to Scunthorpe United where he netted an impressive haul of 11 goals in 15 appearances.

He has already made two appearances under Robins in the league match with Shrewsbury and Saturday's FA Cup third round tie with Tottenham Hotspur.

And Robins said he was delighted to secure his services until June 30, 2015.

He said: "We knew it was going to be difficult to keep hold of David McGoldrick – and so it has proved - so we have acted quickly because we wanted to bring someone in that can score goals at this level and Leon can do that as he has proven.

"We need to fully integrate him into the squad as we've been doing over the last couple of games because he has shown, like he did against us this season, that he can give defences a torrid time and we believe he's the kind of player that can score a lot of goals for us."

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