The Sunderland favourite was bombed out of the first team set up by his manager but still offered to apologise.

Ex-Sunderland favourite Aiden McGeady has revealed he offered to publicly apologise to Phil Parkinson to play for the club again.

Parkinson took over at the club after the sacking of Jack Ross during the club’s second season in League One following double relegation from the Premier League and Championship. McGeady had been a key player in Sunderland’s promotion push but was jettisoned by Parkinson.

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Ex-Celtic and Everton man McGeady would leave Sunderland on loan for Charlton Athletic but returned to Sunderland after six months while Parkinson was under pressure to get results as the Black Cats struggled in the third tier.

Speaking on a recent episode of the What The Falk Podcast, McGeady detailed talks with Parkinson and then-Sunderland owner Stewart Donald around returning to the first-team having been frozen out at the Academy of Light and forced to train with the youth teams.

What did ex-Sunderland ace Aiden McGeady reveal

“I hadn't played for a year,” McGeady said. “I could see when the whole time I was out and then when Parkinson was trying to get me to leave, listen he tried everything to get me to leave, tried absolutely everything, ultimately I ended up speaking to Stewart Donald because we hadn't really had any interaction, obviously he was backing the manager, he was backing Phil Parkinson at the time, because he's his manager.

“I get that, so he kind of has to stick by the manager and his decisions, but when Phil Parkinson tried to get me to leave in the summer, I was like well now I've got a year left on my contract and I just went on loan to Charlton on my own during Covid, I said it was the worst experience of my life, I went I'm not going anywhere, I'm not leaving, just because it suits you, I was going. I was like listen I'll be here longer than you, so that's fine, and then he was like ‘oh no, you need to leave, I think it's best for everybody’ and I was like well no it's best for you, it's not best for me.

“I stayed and then when the transfer window closed, I was waiting to see what they would do because I thought right maybe they're just trying to get me out because the window's still open, but when the transfer window closed I thought right let's see how they act now, and then I went to see the manager and I was like look I think that I can see the team are struggling, you're struggling to create chances, you're struggling to score goals. I said look see what else has happened right, I don't know what's happened, like I didn't know, I was like I don't know what's happened but see if you want me to apologise to you in the press, if you want me to apologise to you in front of the players, I'll happily do that to carry on playing for Sunderland because all I want to do is play.

“He was like right let me think about it, and then he came back, I think I've probably covered it in other times I spoke about it but he came back about a week later and he went nah nothing's changed then, he's still going to be with the 23s, and I was like right that's fine, so then I spoke to Stewart Donald and I was kind of like look Stewart what are we doing here? I said you're paying me, you're paying me a good wage right to not play, I was like this isn't good for anybody, this isn't helping anybody whatsoever.

“He didn't really know what happened, he was like I thought the situation would have came to a head, I thought either the manager would have brought you back in or you would have left, he said so wait we kind of need to address it now, and I was like well yeah, that's all I want to do. So, I think he spoke to Phil Parkinson in a kind of soft way, tried to kind of say look I think maybe you should start looking at bringing Aiden back in. I don't think Phil Parkinson wanted to do that but I think he was half told to do it.

“So the next day I had to go in for a meeting with him and he was like ‘right, we're thinking about bringing you back with the first team, but you need to, I'm telling you need to be here, like your fitness heart levels have to be here’. And I was like well I've been training for the last three months with the reserves so I'm fit yeah, but how fit do I need to be?”