Kazenga LuaLua released to join Sunderland
Brighton and Hove Albion have terminated Kazenga LuaLua’s contract with immediate effect, allowing the winger to join Championship relegation strugglers Sunderland on a contract until the end of the season.
A popular player during his time at the club, LuaLua made an instant impression when signed on loan from Newcastle United towards the end of the 2009-10 season as his pace and direct runner caused all manner of problems for League One full backs as Gus Poyet steered the Albion to the safety of mid table.
He returned on a similar temporary arrangement the following season, scoring spectacular goals from distance against MK Dons, Bournemouth and Charlton Athletic before a broken leg in a defeat at Hartlepool ended his season. The McDons goal in particular was arguably the best ever seen at Withdean and despite only playing for a few months at the Theatre of Trees, he was voted into our WeAreBrighton.com Withdean Greatest XI
Poyet had seen enough in those two loan spells and he paid just over £1m to bring LuaLua to the club on a permanent deal for the 2011/12 season. Injuries were not kind to him however and he spent most of the next six seasons flitting between the substitutes bench and the treatment room. Defenders also worked out he was something of a one trick pony with his “stop, step over, cut inside and hit ball as hard as possible towards goal” routine becoming easy to stop.
He enjoyed a couple of decent runs in the side, not least under Chris Hughton at the start of the 2015/16 season when it looked as though he might finally realise the potential that we’d all seen in him at the start of the decade as the Albion embarked a 21 game unbeaten start to the season. Predictably, LuaLua get injured 10 or so games in and never managed to get back into the side after the arrivals of Jamie Murphy, Anthony Knockaert and Jiri Skalak.
He has had two loan spells with Queens Park Rangers over the last two seasons and now drops to the bottom of the Championship, where Chris Coleman will be hoping to coax something of the player we know is in there to inspire the Black Cats to avoid a second successive relegation.
LuaLua played 183 times for the Albion scoring 22 goals – most of which were celebrated with his brilliant gymnastics displays – and will be remembered as one of the most exciting players ever to pull on the stripes. Off the pitch he was always good value as well with offences including throwing a girls phone down a drain and being fined two weeks wages for doing doughnuts in his car in the Bennetts Field Car Park.
His Twitter account has been good value down the years, including on summer transfer deadline day last season when he went on a rant about not being allowed to leave the club. And it’s already causing him trouble at the Stadium of Light as Sunderland fans found several tweets made in 2014 in which he said #IHATESUNDERLAND.
Classic LuaLua.
