Healy looking for Sunderland exit

Sunderland striker David Healy has issued a 'come and get me' plea to potential buyers as he looks for a way out of the club.

The 30-year-old Northern Ireland international has made just six appearances for the Black Cats this season, all of them as a substitute, and has not started a single league game for the club in the one and a half years since his £1.5m arrival from Fulham.

Healy told BBC Sport: “I know my future is not going to be at Sunderland.

“I’m more than willing to go back to the Championship and get back to enjoying my football again.

“It’s been a disappointing time and people have said that it’s time to move on, but when you have a contract and a family where you live, sometimes it’s difficult.”

Healy has been linked with several Coca-Cola Championship clubs in recent weeks and is not aware of anything concrete.

However, he has admitted a return to seemingly Championship-bound Leeds would appeal to him.

He said: “I haven’t got my eye on anywhere. I have been linked to a number of Championship clubs, but I can’t name anybody.

“But it’s two weeks until the end of the transfer window and I know that things aren’t going to progress for me at Sunderland.

“If there was a club I was ever going to go back to play for, it would be Leeds. I have huge affection for the club.”

Healy’s lack of football has had an unwelcome effect on the international front, where he lost his place in the starting line-up for the November friendly against Serbia, the first time he had been dropped for a home game at Windsor Park since he made his debut in February 2000.