The full back has extended his deal to the summer of 2026. A risky move or an admirable show of faith in a talented player?
Gav says…
This news came a bit out of the blue and I don’t think anyone expected it — which, again, is a testament to the way the club work now, as very little leaks out of the Academy of Light these days — but it’s not hard to see the logic in the decision.
Yes, there’s no skirting around the fact that Niall Huggins is injury prone. He’s had more injuries than I’ve had hot dinners, and I like my bait… but, the club don’t take decisions like this lightly, and I think this is a sign that his recovery is going well. If it wasn’t, and he wasn’t putting the graft in and showing the right attitude, we simply wouldn’t be making him an offer to extend his stay.
The other key thing is Niall’s age. We’re not talking about a lad in his late twenties or early thirties here who’s destined for the scrap heap — he’s only 23, and with modern science and recovery methods, it’s very straightforward for someone that young to make a full recovery from an ACL rupture and go on to have a long and fruitful career.
We haven’t been made privy to any of the details of the deal, but I’d suspect that the club have structured this in a way similar to the deals we made with Corry Evans and Jordan Willis over recent years, whereby they stretch a year’s money over an extra year. This gives the player the breathing space to get themselves fit without the worry hanging over them about whether or not they’re going to have a club come the summer or not.
Put yourself in Huggins’ position — that must be extremely daunting, and it can’t help your recovery process when you’re stressing over whether you’re going to be able to play at the highest level again.
Ability-wise Huggins has proven he’s more than good enough at Championship level. He’s versatile and adapts well to positional changes during games, and I don’t think that there’s any doubting that we suffered from losing him last season when he had his campaign cruelly ended by a freak occurrence. If — and it’s a big if, particularly when he’s a player whose game relies on his pace to get him out of tricky situations — he can get himself back fit and in contention, I don’t think there are many better back up full backs in the league. It’s a long road back, but the goal should be to have Niall back competing on a level playing field with the others come pre-season, which is a long way away but an achievable goal, similar to when he returned for pre-season last year and successfully established himself as an important part of the first team.
I don’t see any downsides to this move. If the worst case scenario plays out and Niall never makes it back, at least the club have performed a duty of care and given a player who injured himself for Sunderland’s cause a fair chance to make a full recovery.
Andrew Smithson says…
Sunderland are becoming increasingly canny about how they manage contracts and this latest step gives the club and the player a bit of security.
Huggins is a brilliant option if he can avoid any more long term issues, and by showing faith in him now, we could end up getting the best years of his career or be looking at a decent fee coming in.
It might seem a bit calculating, but that’s the best way to operate and it beats previous approaches when we were either lumbered with deadwood we couldn’t shift or had to let popular names go for well below their value.
I’m also pleased on a human level that we appear to be looking after people and doing things the right way. Stuff like giving new deals to those that warrant them or letting former squad members use our facilities until they’re sorted can only bring positive outcomes.
I’m looking forward to seeing Huggins getting back out on the pitch and wish him well with his recovery. It’ll be a big boost when he’s available and will give us some very important depth.
Malc Dugdale says…
I’m really happy for the lad and am just as happy at how the club is dealing with players with such injury issues.
He’s a very good player who’s been plagued with unfortunate injuries in sequence. He deserves a chance for sure and doesn’t deserve to run out of time to come back in red and white.
This will give him the incentive to train hard through his rehab and to get his fitness back on point.
It’s got to be quite depressing having the injury luck he’s had, so it’s something to work towards- a light in the tunnel, so to speak.
We’renever flush for decent defenders and he has a goal or two in him as well, as he’s shown when he was fit, so it’s good business and something that also makes sense for Huggins.
It’s pretty typical of us just now, and the same approach we used for the likes of Corry Evans and others, which is very refreshing and represents pretty much zero risk for the club.
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