Healy Off The Radar
Mon, Feb 01 2010
It's been a quiet weekend for our senior internationals both in terms of goals and transfer news.
Today is the final day of the January transfer window. As soon as the new year arrived David Healy expressed his desire to leave Sunderland. There have been a few rumours but that is quite literally all it has amounted to. As Northern Ireland supporters we see a different David Healy. We see someone who has an MBE for his outstanding services to football. We see someone who is our country's all-time leading goal scorer. What we don't seem to realise is that our hero is a forgotten soul on Wearside.
Many of you will have been glued to Sky Sports News at the weekend keen to catch-up on all the latest transfer rumours. Not once was David Healy so much as mentioned. Sunderland seem to be in the frame to sign players from all over the place both in defence and up front. It's no secret how unsettled Kenwyne Jones is currently and the likelihood of the Benjani move being confirmed later today would suggest he to be Jones' replacement. Now that Robbie Keane is in the picture the back room staff at the SoL will have their work cut out today. Bruce made it clear he needs to sign someone else in case Darren Bent gets injured. That would suggest that Healy is not even in the frame.
So why is he still there? It's difficult, but Healy's success has been pretty much confined to wearing a green shirt. He did an average job at Preston, an average job at Leeds and an average job at Fulham. At Sunderland he hasn't had a chance to do a job at all, despite scoring in the first three games he played. To be fair he has had competition in the form of Jones and Bent but even Michael Chopra and Daryl Murphy (now a target of Roy Keane), a midfielder, were ahead of him in the pecking order both when Keane was in charge and now with Steve Bruce. If you're sitting on the sidelines and not getting a game at all then it is pretty difficult to look attractive to anyone. This is perhaps why the few clubs that have shown an interest only wish to do so on a loan basis. Sunderland were happy to let him go to Coventry City last summer but Healy wouldn't take a cut in wages it seems.
We all know Healy is short of pace but is Lawrie Sanchez the only manager that saw the natural goal scorer that Healy was? No one since then has tactically formed their squad around Healy as a striker and it shows. Nigel Worthington too has not seen Healy as the fulcrum and as a result we only saw a single goal from him in the last tournament.
Sunderland allegedly want £1 million for a player that never plays which isn't going to happen. It is unlikely there'll be any movement between now and close of play today. The scenario, it would seem, is that Healy will probably go on loan to the Championship or League One later this month, once the transfer window has expired. If not, he will be left where he is and will struggle to make it into Worthington's starting XI in Tirana next month.
Obviously, all this could change later today. If it does you'll be the first to know.
Steve Davis was the only one of our lot to score at the weekend with a cracking Beckhamesque free kick in Rangers' 3-0 home win against Falkirk. Dean Shiels, Gareth McAuley, Grant McCann and Chris Brunt all got noticed but for picking up yellow cards.
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