“I should have been playing” – Aiden O’Brien addresses January departure from Sunderland

Ex-Sunderland forward Aiden O’Brien believes that he should have been starting games for the Black Cats before his eventual departure from the club in January.

The Republic of Ireland international spent a year and a half at the Stadium of Light after joining the Wearside club in the summer of 2020 from Millwall.

O’Brien played 32 times for Sunderland last season but began to find himself being sporadically used during the 2021-22 campaign, appearing just 17 times in League One before departing the club with the majority of those outings coming from the substitutes bench.

With his last league start coming in November, O’Brien decided to swap Sunderland for Pompey as Danny Cowley snapped the 29-year-old up for the rest of the season, and he’s already repaid the faith shown in him with three goals in five appearances.

The latest of those came in the 95th minute to secure a point against Fleetwood Town on Saturday, but briefly reflecting on the circumstances that saw him swap the north east for the south coast, O’Brien thinks that he wasn’t given the chances he deserved towards the end of his time at Sunderland.

“You’ll all probably know now that I’ve backed myself. It’s actually been a rare occasion for me in my time in professional football,” O’Brien said, per the Portsmouth News.

“I wasn’t playing for Sunderland when I should have been playing, in my eyes. I’m still currently their third top goal scorer there, with the least amount of games. I should have been playing.

“I’ve come here to back myself and I, obviously, spoke to the manager and he told me ‘yeah, come, you’ll get game time’.”

The Verdict

O’Brien has backed himself to do the business for Pompey and so far he’s doing just that.

Three goals in five matches is a