Sunderland manager Chris Coleman questioned Everton’s decision to not end Brendan Galloway’s loan at Sunderland in January.
The 21-year-old defender has only made eight appearances across all competitions for the Black Cats this season and hasn’t played in the league for them since December 9, despite the club being in a relegation battle.
Out of these eight appearances, only two of them have been made since Coleman became manager of Sunderland in November and the 47-year-old has now admitted he thought the Toffees would have sent Galloway elsewhere.
“Brendan is a lovely kid and he has been working hard but he has lacked game time,” said Coleman, as quoted by the Liverpool Echo.
“He’s here to get game time and he is not getting it, you don’t want to waste the boy’s time, it is a critical stage for him.
“We thought maybe Everton would want to take him back, maybe loan him out somewhere else, even in the division below, but that wasn’t the case.
“So Brendan is still here, and he is a cracking boy, who knows, we may need to call on him yet.”
Sky Sports’ correspondent Keith Downie previously claimed on his personal Twitter account in January that Galloway had informed Everton that he wanted to leave the Championship club in order to join League One’s MK Dons.
OPINION
While Coleman doesn’t dismiss the possibility that Galloway could still feature for Sunderland this season, it looks unlikely that he’ll be playing regularly. The whole point of Everton sending the left-back out on loan was to get him regular football in order to aid his development. Therefore, it seems a massive oversight by the club that they’ve left him at Sunderland, when he could have joined MK Dons and got regular football in the second half of the season. Galloway is no doubt frustrated by the situation because as long as he stays at Sunderland, he’s not learning anything. Hopefully, his time at Sunderland doesn’t affect his career in the long run.