Sunderland failed in a late move in last month’s transfer window for Swansea City winger Barrie McKay, as per a report by the Blackpool Gazette.
The Scotland international ended up joining their League One rivals Fleetwood Town on a deal until the end of the season.
McKay, who is 25 years old, has fallen out-of-favour with Swansea under Steve Cooper this season and has been allowed to leave for more game time. He joined the Welsh side in 2018 from Nottingham Forest and played 31 times in all competitions in the last campaign.
The tricky winger has racked up over 250 appearances so far in his career and has had spells in the past at Rangers, Greenock Morton, Raith Rovers and Forest.
Fleetwood boss Joey Barton is delighted to have brought him in and has said, as per the Blackpool Gazette: “I played with Barrie at Rangers, then he got a move to Forest and did really, really well. They intended to sell him to Olympiakos and it never quite materialised. They ended up selling him to Swansea under Graham Potter and again he did really well.”
“The new manager (Steve Cooper) has come in and there’s a change of ideas. I couldn’t believe he was available because you would expect a Championship club or one of the big Scottish teams to take a player of his quality.”
He added: “We’d monitored him all the way through but late in the window he was available at Fleetwood prices and luckily for us we got him signed. At the last minute Sunderland tried to do the deal but we had the paperwork done, so it’s nice to put one across them again.”
Fleetwood take on AFC Wimbledon this weekend and will be eager to close the gap on the Play-Offs which currently stands at five points.
