Played for both: Controversial former Sunderland deserter Lewis Grabban

Would Sunderland have had more of a chance of staying up if he stayed? Should he have at least tried?

Say what you want about Sunderland nowadays, but the era of the mercenary has gone. Lewis Grabban was probably one of the last of them. 

Grabban was born on the 12th of January 1988 in Croydon and started his career at Crystal Palace, where he had been in the academy since the age of 13. 

He was given his debut for the club in August 2005 at the age of 18, in a 3-0 home win over Walsall in the League Cup. In May 2006, he was named Academy Player of the Year. 

'Exciting' talent set to start? Sunderland predicted line-up vs Norwich

After his debut back in August 2005 he would only feature another 12 times for Palace before leaving the club in 2008. He had two loan spells during his time there too, featuring a combined 14 times for Oldham Athletic and Scottish Premiership side Motherwell.

In January 2008, Grabban joined London rivals Millwall. He made his debut for Millwall at The Den in a 2-2 draw with Nottingham Forest and scored his first goal of Millwall in a 3-0 win over Port Vale. 

He then he went on to score in his following two games scoring an equaliser against Luton and then opened the scoring in a 2-1 victory over Swansea.

Despite a strong start to life at Millwall, Grabban wasn’t able to carry on his good form the following season, scoring just seven times in 39 matches. That led to him spending the entirety of 2010 on loan at Brentford before making a permanent move to Griffin Park, but that was only for six months.

Grabban joined his sixth club in six seasons when he joined League Two side Rotherham United on the July 4, 2012, signing a two-year deal. 

He scored a stunning volley on his debut as Rotherham beat Oxford United 1-0 and then went onto score against Gillingham, Dagenham & Redbridge, Torquay, Shrewsbury, Morecambe, Aldershot and Bradford as well.

His performances attracted the attention of Crawley Town, but a £100,000 bid was described as “embarrassing” by his manager Andy Scott.

Grabban ended the season with 21 goals in 47 appearances, which attracted more interest from clubs in higher leagues.

Grabban joined Bournemouth for a fee of £300,000 on the 31 May 2012. In his first season with the club, he scored 13 times in 47 games as Bournemouth were promoted to the championship. 

He  then scored four goals in his first three championship matches and maintained his strong start to the season as he netted in the games against Blackpool, Leeds United and former club Millwall. 

The striker signed a new three-year-deal with the club in January 2014 after some interest from Brighton and his scoring spree continued. He ended the season with 22 goals as Bournemouth finished 10th in the table.

Grabban completed a transfer to Norwich in June 2014. The Canaries had just been relegated back down to the championship and were looking to add a goal scorer to their ranks. 

His 12 goals in 35 appearances helped Norwich gain promotion through the play-offs back to the Premier League at the first time of trying.

After only making six appearances in the Premier League, Grabban departed Norfolk and returned to the South Coast and re-joined Bournemouth. He again struggled for game time and then ended up out on loan at Reading during the 2016-17 season.

Ahead of the 2017-18 season Lewis Grabban signed on a season long loan with Sunderland. 

He scored another debut goal, this time in a 1-1 draw with Derby County, and then he scored three times in a 3-1 win over Norwich, although one of those goals was in his own net. 

He went on to score 9 goals in 11 games against, Brentford, Bristol City, Bolton Wanderers, Millwall, Aston Villa, Reading and Birmingham. 

However, Grabban decided to cut his loan short on 5 of January and he returned to parent club Bournemouth. 

He then joined Aston Villa on loan for the remainder of that season where he scored eight goals in 15 games and he finished second in the golden boot race with 20 goals, just one behind Derby’s Matej Vydra.

Grabban left Bournemouth in the summer of 2018 and joined Nottingham Forest. He scored 36 goals in his first two seasons at The City Ground and just missed out on the Play-offs in the COVID-19 interrupted 2019/20 season. 

His third season at Forest didn’t come without its troubles. After two seasons of fighting for play-offs, the infamous season with empty stadiums saw Forest struggle towards the lower third of the table. 

They didn’t go higher than 15th at any point in the season. Grabban was again their top scorer despite only scoring six times. 

The following season saw a tough start under the experienced Chris Hughton, who was sacked after seven games. 

Steve Cooper came in and, after losing six of their first seven, they only lost the same number of games in the rest of the season as they were promoted via the play-offs.

Grabban joined Al-Ahli on a short-term deal after being released by Forest and is now a free agent and has now been without a club since 2022.

PREVIEW: Norwich vs Sunderland - How to watch, stat pack and referee