Kieran Richardson Bio Send To Friend  

England international Richardson joined Sunderland form Manchester United for £5.5million in July 2007, signing a four-year deal at the Stadium of Light.

The Greenwich-born midfielder began his career as a trainee with West Ham before moving to Manchester in 2001 and progressing through the reserve teams to make his United debut in the Champions League in October 2002.

But Richardson really made the breakthrough with Manchester United in 2005/06 after a loan spell at West Bromwich Albion had transformed his career. Before that, his talent had been sporadic.

When initially breaking into the United squad he had the tag of the 'new Ryan Giggs'. He is not of that standard, despite his own undoubted self regard.

United boss Sir Alex Ferguson once hailed the player as one of the best to come through the club's Academy, but those comments now seem well wide of the mark.

The versatile player led the England Under-16 side to the Milk Cup final back in 2001, where they lost out to Paraguay, and was named Player of the Tournament at the European Youth Cup.

He was loaned to West Bromwich Albion for the remainder the second-half of the 2004/05 and it was with Bryan Robson's side that he emerged as a quality Premiership performer.

He made his debut in a 2-2 draw at home to Crystal Palace, and then bagged a goal in his next game - a 3-2 defeat at Norwich City. As the season went on, and Richardson helped keep West Brom in the top flight against the odds, there was talk of a call-up to the full England squad.

In May 2005 Sven-Goran Eriksson named him in his England squad for the summer tour of the United States. And he marked his debut with two goals in a fine performance against the USA, with England winning 2-1. Since then, he has dropped out of the first-team reckoning though featured for England U21 in the 2007 European Championship.

He turned down the chance of a new loan with West Brom to fight for a place at Manchester United in 2005/06, and after regular appearances in the first team penned a new contract to run until the summer of 2009.

Although the self-assured attacker may have thought he had made it he never really made his mark at Old Trafford and when former team-mate Roy Keane came calling following Sunderland's promotion to the Premier League it was time to ship out.

After an indifferent start at the Stadium of Light it was discovered that he had a stress fracture of the spine and he was sidelined for four months.

He offered the Sunderland fans a flash of his quality when he scored two goals in the 20 win against Portsmouth, also striking the bar to miss out on his hat-trick, but then injury struck once again as the midfielder tore a hamstring.