Sunderland icon Marco Gabbiadini will not get the chance to face his former club when Hartlepool United travel to the Stadium of Light tomorrow for the FA Cup 3rd round match.
Gabbiadini, who will celebrate his 36th birthday in just over two weeks, hasn’t recovered fully from an operation on his knee, and hasn’t played for the Monkey Hangers since last November. But the iconic striker WILL be at the Stadium of Light tomorrow; he told the Northern Echo, “I’ll be there on Saturday and be supporting Hartlepool, there’s no two ways about it. I’ll be rooting for Sunderland for the rest of the season though.
“My operation was nothing major, but it hasn’t really done the trick. I need a bit more doing, a scan and the like. It’s one of those things that happens in football. People have missed FA Cup finals.
“I knew all along it was going to be a tall order, so it’s not much of a shock for me.”
Gabbiadini signed for Sunderland in the autumn of 1987 for £80,000 and was a prolific scorer, netting 87 times in four years at Roker Park. Crystal Palace bought him in October 1991 for £1.8m but he spent only four months there before moving to Derby County for £1m in January 1992. Since then he’s been signed by Stoke City, Darlington, Northampton and now Hartlepool, also seeing out loan spells at Birmingham, Oxford and York along the way.
Marco says that ‘Pool go to the Stadium tomorrow with high hopes. “We have done well this season and go there with a chance of winning. Not being disrespectful, but Sunderland are not the club they once were.
“We can go there and be confident.”