Sunderland well and truly dodged a bullet after £6m Portsmouth transfer agreement | OneFootball

David Nugent was subject to a £6m fight between Sunderland & Portsmouth for his signature. Portsmouth won, but Sunderland might be relieved they did.

Sunderland and Portsmouth went head-to-head in a race to sign £6 million striker David Nugent in the summer of 2007, but Sunderland will be relieved that they did considering the way things turned out for him at Fratton Park.

The Black Cats had a dismal 2005/06 season in the Premier League, finishing bottom of the pile with just 15 points.

But the following season, they would bounce straight back up as second tier champions.

Increasing their firepower up front was one of their main aims for the following summer, and David Nugent looked like an ideal solution, having scored fifteen goals in 44 Championship games for Preston North End the previous season.

Sunderland faced a battle to secure Nugent's signature

But, Sunderland had opposition from the other end of the country for his signature.

Portsmouth had just finished 9th in the Premier League but had only scored 45 goals in the process, and they rivaled the Black Cats' £6 million bid for him.

In the end, Nugent chose Portsmouth over Sunderland, but this wasn't a decision that the club would end up regretting. Cracks in the relationship between Nugent and his new manager, Harry Redknapp, didn't take long to show.

Nugent had only been unveiled as Portsmouth's latest signing on the 11th July, but by the end of August he was apparently surplus to requirements at Fratton Park, despite scoring his first goal for his new club in a 3-0 League Cup win against Leeds United early in the season.

But shortly after this, Redknapp told the press: "Sometimes when you are trying to raise money you have to sell someone you don't really want to sell. That could be David, but it could be others."

It all goes wrong for David Nugent at Portsmouth - Sunderland bag cult hero instead

Nugent decided to stay at Portsmouth, but things didn't work out. He failed to score in 15 Premier League appearances in the 2007/08 season.

There was a striking irony to the timing of his first Premier League goal for Pompey. By January 2009, Redknapp had left Portsmouth for Spurs, and Nugent's first League goal came against his former manager in a 1-1 draw that month.

But he would only score two more Premier League goals for Portsmouth and went on loan to Burnley the following season, where he scored six in 30 appearances. In total, over four full seasons in the top flight, he would only score 14 goals.

Figures from FBRef

Sunderland did fine without him. They signed Kenwyne Jones from Southampton for £6 million plus Stern John, and Jones would go on to score seven in 33 in the League for them the next season, and 26 goals in 94 Premier League appearances overall, before moving on to Stoke City in 2010 for a club-record £8 million.

Sunderland certainly got the better end of that 2007 tug-of-war. Nugent ended up something of a Championship icon, but could never quite cut it in the Premier League.

He even made his one and only England appearance and scored his one and only England goal while a Championship player, against Andorra in March 2007, while he was still at Preston.

With one goal in 11 minutes, he remains the England goalscorer with the shortest-ever senior international career.

Portsmouth ended up getting relegated from the Premier League amid a flurry of bouncing cheques in 2010, but Sunderland ended up staying there until 2017.

Considering how everything went afterwards, the Black Cats can certainly be forgiven for breathing a sigh of relief at missing out on this particular new signing in the summer of 2007.