I played 150 times for Sunderland but risked long-term damage to play at Wembley during play-offs

Ex-Sunderland man Aiden McGeady has detailed how he risked long-term injury damage to play for the club at Wembley under Jack Ross.

The Black Cats missed out on automatic promotion under Ross during the club’s first season in League One following double relegation from the Premier League and Championship. McGeady, a key figure under the Scottish head coach, broke his foot leading up to the play-off campaign.

Sunderland would defeat Portsmouth over two legs but lost against Charlton Athletic at Wembley 2-1 despite going a goal up early doors. McGeady was named on the bench by Ross against the Addicks and has detailed how he risked permanent damage to the injury as he wanted to help the club win promotion.

“I was fit in terms of cardio, you know, fitness in terms of how long I could run,” McGeady told the What The Falk Podcast. “I was fit if I could run, I would be fit, but the only problem was I couldn't run because my foot was so bad, so I broke the two wee bones in the bottom of my foot when we played Accrington Stanley away.

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“It was one of them either I don't play from now to the end of the season, or I try and maybe play towards the end of the season, but with injections. So tried to do that because the manager was absolutely fine. The manager was brilliant. He was like: “Listen it's entirely up to you.” He was like “If it's up to me, he said, I would love you to play but I don't want you to do anything to your foot. I don't want you to risk increasing injury or being out for any longer length of time.”

“I was like, look, I want to try and do everything I can to try and help the team to try and get promoted. That's what everybody wants. So if you need me, I'm there. So he was like “Listen, it is entirely up to you then, so you just tell me what you want to do.” So I said, look it's probably best because I started trying to train maybe just a few days before the game. So I kind of have like Monday to Wednesday not really doing anything, just kind of doing gym work.

“And maybe Friday, Thursday or Friday I would try and train and take the doc would give me an injection to try and train. And it got to the point where I was like listen, I can't even put any weight on my foot. This is pointless. And then I've tried it for the Portsmouth game. The first leg, couldn't complete the warm-up. Then Chris (Maguire) came into the starting line-up for me and then he scored the goal.

“So I didn't go to the return. I was thinking, hopefully, we've got another two or three weeks maybe because it was a bit of a gap between the first leg and Wembley. I thought maybe I've got another two weeks, maybe this could help me. We also got to play our final, and then that day, it was the same. I tried to train and I just couldn't train and I was kind of like look, gaffer I'll be there hopefully we don't need to use me.

“Hopefully, you don't need to use me and we win 3-0 and that's that it, brilliant. He said no that's absolutely fine. And then I took an injection before the game and it's basically an injection, literally, a needle in the bottom of your foot. You know, like literally in the bottom of your foot, like an anaesthetic to numb the pain to just basically so your foot is numb.

“So I got one before the game, and then I got two at half time and then see the way the game was going after half time. I could see Jack saying to me to go and get warmed up, and I was like, right, okay, I was absolutely fine with that, but I wasn't anywhere near close to being able to do what I could do, but I just I think he thought if you you can give us something that might help us win the game. And I was the same I wasn't saying don't put me on. I was like, yeah, put me on. But yeah, with everything going I wasn’t able to do what I usually would, nowhere close.”