TIMOTHEE Pembélé says he was "fed up" at Sunderland and needed no time to think about a return to France when he learnt of Le Havre's interest in the summer.

Pembele joined Sunderland from PSG in the summer of 2023 but endured a difficult first season on Wearside, making only three Championship starts and eight appearances in total.

He didn't feature in Regis Le Bris' plans after the head coach's summer arrival and was told he'd be allowed to leave on loan.

And the 22-year-old admits he was pleasantly surprised when he learnt of transfer interest from Ligue 1. Having failed to establish himself at Sunderland, Pembele says he didn't expect to get a move to the French top tier.

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With Pembele out of the first team picture on Wearside, the right-back was playing for the Under-21s, which he wasn't overly pleased about.

But he's now happy to have got his career back on track at Le Havre, where he's made seven league appearances and started the last five games.

He said: “I really didn’t think that HAC would come looking for me. I was in second division in England, I wasn’t playing, and I thought I’d go back to Ligue 2.

“I have confidence in myself, I know I have the ability to play in Ligue 1, but in today’s football, when a player doesn’t play, he’s quickly forgotten.

“When my agent told me that Le Havre were interested in me, I said straight out, ‘Let’s go! I didn’t look to see where I stood in the pecking order, I just said to myself, I’m going, I’m fighting, and we’ll see what happens!”

Le Havre are managed by Didier Digard, who was loosely linked with Sunderland in the summer. Pembele has a good relationship with the Frenchman, who briefly played for Middlesbrough early in his career.

He said: “In the end, it took a bit of time. I signed in the last few days of the window, and the coach gave me a warm welcome, telling me that I needed to get my rhythm back.

“So, I played one match with the reserves. In England, I played quite a few games with the reserves, and I was fed up with playing with younger players. But the coach explained to me that I had to play 90 minutes to get into a rhythm. After that, it was one thing after another.”

Pembele's loan spell is due to expire at the end of the season and there's no option for Le Havre to make the deal permanent, though the clubs will discuss the possibility if there's interest in doing the deal at both ends.

Trai Hume is the only natural right-back on Sunderland's books but that didn't prevent the Black Cats from letting Pembele move on in the summer.