GRAHAM KAVANAGH is pondering his Sunderland future after being left on Wearside as Sunderland travelled to Ireland on their pre-season tour.
The midfielder is recovering from a long-term knee injury and played 45 minutes in Sunderland’s friendly at Darlington 10 days ago.
But he did not go with the rest of the squad to Portugal for a training camp earlier this week, playing for the reserves at Berwick instead, and nor has he travelled to his homeland with the rest of Keane’s tour party.
Now Keane has revealed Kavanagh is considering whether to fight for his place at Sunderland – where there is stiff competition in central midfield – or go out on loan in search of games.
Keane said: “Graham Kavanagh has remained over in England.
“He came to see me about it the other day but Kav’s playing catch up with a lot of other players.
“And I’ve got maybe six or seven players at this moment ahead of him. I’m very strong in the middle of the park at the moment.
“I’ve brought in Dickson Etuhu and Kieran Richardson, I’ve got Dean Whitehead, Grant Leadbitter, Dwight Yorke and Liam Miller.
“And when I told Kav that yesterday, he mentioned maybe going out on loan and getting some games.
“There have been some inquiries for him. But I don’t like the idea of him going out on loan because I think he’s better than that.
“Unfortunately for Kav, he was very unlucky with injuries last season and we’ve brought in a lot of new players.
“Graham will have to think about things but I like to throw down the gauntlet to every player to come back and challenge for a place.
“He’s obviously disappointed with missing out on the Ireland trip but we couldn’t take everybody and I didn’t just want to bring him and give him 20 minutes here and there.
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