Having failed to live up to his early promise at White Hart Lane, Hutton will be hoping to rediscover his form at the Stadium of Light...
The Penliee-born right-back joined the ranks at the Stadium of Light in January 2010, having spent the previous two years at Tottenham Hotspur after a protracted £9m move from boyhood club Rangers.
While at first Hutton was reluctant to move south of the border – he twice rejected Spurs’ advances – a switch from the SPL seemed only a matter of time for a man whose stellar performances had attracted a number of admirers, most notably Sir Alex Ferguson, who had described the 6ft 1in defender as “an exceptional player who will go onto be a superstar”.
That assessment was quickly validated during Hutton’s first few months at Spurs, where a combination of composed defending and a tireless ability to get forward made the Scot one of the team’s most consistent players.
However his initial success was perhaps not a sign of what was to come at White Hart Lane, with injuries and the arrival of Vedran Corluka restricting him to only a handful of first team outingsover the next 18 months, with Harry Redknapp opting to allow the Scot to move to the northeast on loan for the second half of 2009/10.