Honest Kilbane admired more by managers than fans

After a 2-0 victory in his debut, against Southampton, Kilbane and Sunderland did not win a game for three months. The “Curse of Kilbane” is what they called it on Weirside. The Black Cats were relegated with the worst record in their Premiership existence. Mick McCarthy the newly appointed boss at the struggling Cats still insisted that Kilbane was an effective and honest player.
In fact, McCarthy at times couldn’t understand why the winger got so much stick and criticism. Kilbane was very much an automatic choice with McCarthy for the Republic of Ireland and played in every game in the Korea/Japan 2002 World Cup.
A couple of weeks ago, Everton came in with an offer for Kilbane, bidding