Former Newcastle United defender David Edgar has admitted that he regrets leaving St James’ Park following their relegation to the Championship in 2009.

Edgar had come over from Canada to join Newcastle at the age of 14 in 2001, but struggled to fully establish himself on Tyneside. He amassed 23 appearances across all competitions for the Magpies – scoring two goals and providing one assist in the process.

Newcastle were relegated from the Premier League at the end of the 2008-09 season and Edgar traded Newcastle for Turf Moor after receiving an offer from Burnley.

The former Canadian international has revealed that Newcastle had offered him a new deal at the club, and says in hindsight that he could’ve featured regularly for the Magpies in the second-tier.

“It was a bit of a difficult one because my contract was up. I’d been offered something and it was a bit of a strange situation. I wanted to stay, I didn’t want to leave Newcastle and I probably would’ve played the whole of the next season,” Edgar told the Undr The Cosh podcast.

“You don’t start your career as a young centre-back at centre-back. You start usually right-back, left-back and move your way in and that’s probably what I should’ve done.

“Hindsight is easy, but my one regret in football is deciding to leave. They treated me like a local lad, so it’s easy not to value them. That’s what I think happened. They sent me a couple of offers which I turned down, but because it was such a shambles at the club they just kept sending back the same offers.

“I didn’t really have a good agent. I had an agent in Canada who couldn’t get a phone call back from anyone so I was kind of left in limbo. Then Burnley came and they had got promoted, so I was like, ‘shall I stay in the Premier League?’ So I had to make a decision, you’ve got to do what you’ve got to do.”