Former Sunderland and Cardiff City midfielder Jonny Williams has opened up about his time at both clubs.
The 29-year-old came through the Crystal Palace academy as a young boy, and he stayed with the London side for 17 years before departing Selhurst Park in 2019.
Williams was a regular in the team to help Palace to promotion from the Championship in the 2012/13 season, but he then had limited game time, thereafter, making just 17 more appearances for the Eagles in all competitions to take his total to 70 in the red and blue.
The attacking midfielder has always struggled with injuries, and therefore, whichever club he has been at during his game time has taken a hit.
While at Palace, Williams also spent several seasons on loan at teams like Ipswich Town, Nottingham Forest, MK Dons, and Sunderland. He left Palace in 2019 to join Charlton Athletic, where he stayed for two years before joining Cardiff City in 2021.
He was only at Cardiff for six months before joining League Two club Swindon Town, where he is still playing, a move that has seen him rediscover his love for the game and earn a place in Wales' national squad.
Williams has admitted that he considers his spells at Sunderland and Cardiff to be the low points of his career.
Williams told Wales Online: “Yeah potentially I did have doubts. My head was a bit all over the place, I was a free agent. I had signed for Cardiff and was there for a while. I didn’t play as many games as I would have liked to.
“Mainly because the team went on about an eight-game winning streak which was great. They just missed out on the play-offs at the end and me personally I didn’t really get the chance to show what I can do.
“I felt low at the time and Sunderland was tough. I didn’t get kept on by Cardiff and was out of contract."
The Verdict
Williams' football career has been marred by injuries, which have prevented him from reaching his full potential.
His injuries have meant he’s struggled to play the regular number of games that he would have liked, but at Sunderland and Cardiff, it also seemed there were other reasons why he didn’t get to play much. As he says, Cardiff went on an unbeaten run, and the manager at the time didn’t want to keep changing his team.
While at Sunderland during the time he was at the club, it was a circus of chaos after just being relegated from the Premier League, and the ongoing turmoil on and off the pitch meant it wasn’t a great place to be at that time.
However, Williams seems to have now found a home in Swindon, playing regularly every week and keeping fit. The midfielder has managed to get into the Wales World Cup squad, and his next aim will be to get on the pitch at some point in the tournament.