At times, football is fluid and there is always movement to-and-fro when it comes to transfer windows. Some of those decisions are spontaneous whilst others have a longer trajectory and backstory. One of the latter was Aiden McGeady who spoke to the South London Press and gave the reasons behind his move to The Valley from Sunderland.
33-year-old McGeady, a 92-cap Republic of Ireland international, started his career in football at Scottish giants Celtic, breaking through to their first team in 2004 and earning a later move, in 2010, to Spartak Moscow for a fee of £10.8million. From there it was a £1.8million move to Everton in 2014 and a £250,000 move to Sunderland three years later.
Whilst on Wearside, McGeady played 98 times for Sunderland, scoring 27 goals and providing 13 assists. He’s featured twice so far at The Valley and, in speaking to the South London Press, laid bare his reasons for moving from the Black Cats to the Addicks.
In an exclusive written by Richard Cawley, McGeady says it was ‘nothing more than a disagreement’ with Sunderland manager Phil Parkinson that hastened his move to London. Elaborating further, McGeady said: “There was nothing more or nothing less than me and the manager not seeing eye to eye. He felt it better that I train away from the group, for whatever reason.”
McGeady was at pains to stress that he didn’t break any team rules that led to his estrangement from the first-team set-up at Sunderland and froze him out of Parkinson’s plans. He was quick to point out that it was simply a case of a perceived incompatibility from Parkinson’s side. On this, McGeady simply stated: “It’s nothing more than the manager felt he was better without me and that he didn’t need me. We didn’t see eye to eye.”
Charlton are currently in 19th place in the table, five points above the drop zone. Their next game is tomorrow at home to struggling Luton who sit below them in 23rd place in the Sky Bet Championship table.
