{{primary_category}}
{{/primary_category}} 
Niall Huggins has revealed why he left Leeds United for a move to Sunderland
Former Leeds United man Niall Huggins has revealed why he joined Sunderland permanently rather than going back out on loan.
The Welsh Under-21 international claimed that the chances of ever breaking into the first team at Elland Road were slowly reducing, and he jumped at the chance to join Sunderland.
He claimed that the League One side are a “massive” club and that they belong in the Premier League [Sunderland Echo].
He said: “It was a great experience to be near that first-team level in the Premier League.
“But Leeds are looking to bring in lots of high-quality players from around the world and, opportunity-wise for me, it was going to be hard to breakthrough.
“The pathway just got a bit smaller for me, and when I heard Sunderland were interested, it was huge.
Subscribe to Football Insider TV now
“They are a massive club. I know they are in League One now, but they’re fighting to get back up the leagues, and they’re a Premier League club, really.”
Would Huggins ever have made it?
The 20-year-old is versatile and can play at left-back or right-back and did manage to make one appearance for the first team.
However, during the 2020/21 season, Huggins failed to make any more first-team appearances and was only on the bench nine times.
Therefore, it seemed pretty clear that at 20, Huggins wasn’t going to make it in Marcelo Bielsa’s first team.
The likes of Sam Greenwood and Joe Gelhardt are younger and considered closer to the first team.
Therefore, it appears as if Huggins made the right choice to leave for a move to the Stadium of Light.
Hopefully, he thrives for the Black Cats as he has been described as “fantastic” by Ian Harte in the past, and Sunderland are a huge club [Ian Harte’s Twitter account].
It just seems as if it was never going to work out for Huggins at Leeds and him moving on definitely seems like the best thing for the club and his career.
In other Leeds United news, Jamie O’Hara and Laura Woods clashed over one Leeds star.