Sunderland AFC transfer gossip: Aiden McGeady urges Celtic's James McCarthy to join Alex Neil on Wearside

McGeady departed the Stadium of Light last season after his contract expires, linking up with former manager Lee Johnson at Hibs.

Sunderland have returned to the Championship in style, taking four points from Coventry City and Bristol City.

However, the Black Cats still need reinforcements and have been loosely linked with Celtic man McCarthy, 31, who is out of favour in Glasgow with Sunderland eyeing new signings before the window closes.

"I met him the other day and I was interested to hear what he was thinking about Celtic and whether he still had the ambition to play every single game, or whether he was cool to sit at Celtic and not play," McGeady told Open Goal.

"But he was like 'no, I want to play'. We spoke for two minutes but he did actually say that [that he wants to play]."

"I think going into that Sunderland team he'd play every game," McGeady added. "Sunderland just now have just such a young squad. They are going that Brentford model way of young players with asset value and don't sign over the age of 24.

"But I think he would be good. For him, he's got to be playing games. He's probably gone a few years without having a sustained run of games in the team and Sunderland are still the biggest club in the Championship."

"If I was him, I'd be like 'yeah, I've got to go and play games'."