Breaking transfer news as the deal that would have seen Andy Lonergan transfer to the Stadium of Light from Leeds United is now off, despite an earlier agreement made between the player and both Leeds United and Sunderland.
Leeds United goalkeeper Andy Lonergan’s move to Sunderland is OFF. He will rejoin the #lufc squad .... unless anything happens in the window! pic.twitter.com/mlr5kJm4TC
— Adam Pope (@APOPEY) January 31, 2018
Our friends over at Roker Report have been reporting since last week that Chris Coleman and Sunderland were interested in bringing in the experienced goalkeeper, as he has ties to current Black Cat assistant manager Kit Symon from their time together at Fulham.
It sounded like Lonergan was keen to move on and to get a shot at being the starting keeper at Sunderland after coming in and starting a few matches at Leeds this season. His time between the sticks was often not a happy one for the club, but other than his performance against Brentford, he was not the reason the club’s fortunes had fallen during his time starting.
Leeds were looking at replacing Lonergan from within and promoting one of the youngsters, either Kamil Miazek or Bailey Peacock-Farrell, to be the backup keeper, so that might have caused a problem, as neither have made any appearances in the Championship or a similar level. Peacock-Farrell might be the keeper of the future at Leeds, but he’s not necessarily the keeper of right now, and it seemed like a big gamble to only have goalkeepers with lower league and youth experience.
So Andy Lonergan will stay at Leeds for at least the rest of the season, but don’t expect him to stick around the club during the summer transfer window.