|
Joining up at Brunton Park with fellow Black Cats loanee Graham Kavanagh, London-born Liddle, who was brought up in Haydon Bridge near Hexham, played for Sunderland's first team in a pre-season friendly against Athlone Town in the Republic of Ireland this year before winning his first cap for the Emerald Isle under-21s in a 1-1 friendly draw away to Austria on the 19th of August.
On the signing of Liddle, who has yet to make a senior start for Sunderland after coming through the youth ranks at the Stadium of Light, United caretaker manager Greg Abbott commented to BBC Radio Cumbria :
"We have signed a lad called Michael Liddle, he is from Sunderland, he is a player that Dennis has watched and I have watched. We have probably had him watched six times this season and he has been really, really impressive every time we have seen him. Obviously we brushed up with Graham Kavanagh, we asked him what he thought because he has trained with him day in and day out for the last year to 18 months. We all came up with the same answer that he is ready to play league football.
" I went to watch him again last night, he played an hour for Sunderland reserves and they were terrific. They brought him off after an hour so that he could come into contention for the game tomorrow. He was absolutely excellent, they won 2-0 and he set up both goals from the left-back position. So we are hoping that he can come in and make a big impact and give Evan (Horwood) a little bit of time to get his game back together and protect him on that.
" So we are really pleased with that one, he is likely to be involved heavily, you can make of that what you want but we haven't brought him into the club to sit around doing nothing. We are hoping that he will make an impact so I would think that at the moment he has got a strong, strong chance of playing tomorrow. "
First Team Transfers 2008-09 : Click here