Sunderland AFC: Mike Dodds makes Trai Hume, Dan Ballard transfer prediction | OneFootball

Sunderland's interim head coach Mike Dodds believes that there is going to be Premier League interest in the defensive duo of Trai Hume and Dan Ballard in the summer, as he predicts top flight futures for both players.

Dodds has previously said that the club are braced for bids from top teams for their players. On top of the two Northern Ireland internationals in their squad, goalkeeper Anthony Patterson and star winger Jack Clarke have also been linked with moves to the Premier League.

Patterson is said to have been watched by scouts from both Arsenal and Liverpool, while HITC have claimed that Crystal Palace are still interested in Sunderland's 23-year-old top scorer.

The club's evergreen full-back, who was bought for £200,000 in January 2022, as per the Northern Echo, is said to have caught the eye of clubs like Aston Villa and AFC Bournemouth, as well as Championship title contenders Leicester City and Leeds United, according to the Belfast Telegraph.

His 24-year-old compatriot was being touted as Everton's replacement for Jarrad Branthwaite, should the former Carlisle United defender be sold for big money in the summer, as per Football Transfers.

Dodds claimed that the club are in a good position to be able to ward off such interest in some of their best players, and that they will demand big fees in order to let them go, as per the Sunderland Echo.

Mike Dodds on Trai Hume and Dan Ballard's Premier League future

Although the interim boss does feel that the Black Cats will be able to hold on to the likes of the two Northern Irishmen in the summer, he does see their destiny of ending up in the Premier League as being inevitable, but that the plan is for them to make it to that level whilst still playing at the Stadium of Light.

said Dodds, via the Northern Echo.

"Those two are going to have a little bit of a fight for that in the future. If they stay injury free, they are Premier League players in waiting and they are going to accumulate a huge amount of international caps.

"They're both massively important to us and there is going to be a lot of interest at Premier League level if we don't get there ourselves at some point, because that's the quality they both have."

The 37-year-old further praised the full-back for his dependability, and the club's recruitment team for getting such a talented player for such a small price.

"Trai is a real positive to the recruitment of this football club. You sign him for, and I mean this with the greatest of respect, what is essentially peanuts in the modern-day market and, for me, he's one of the best full backs in the league,"the former assistant coach said.

"The fact that he can keep churning out games and minutes says everything about his mentality. He is going to need that summer break and he is one of the players who we are really mindful of internally, but I can't really take him out of the team because he is so influential to the team.

"He's a huge, huge asset and one the club needs to do everything to keep for as long as possible."

Hume has only missed 26 minutes of the club's 23/24 campaign.

Trai Hume is an example of Sunderland's recruitment model at its best

The purchase of the 22-year-old perfectly sums up what Kyril Louis-Dreyfus and Kristjaan Speakman are trying to do with the club: identify young, cheap talents, who they can develop and then, eventually sell-on.

Sunderland won't want to always be a selling club, but, once they have sold a few of these players for £10-20 million each, or even more, then they are going to have sustainably generated a bank of wealth for them to call on to really try and push to the next level.

The problem comes if the likes of Speakman get too wrapped up in the ideology and start focusing less on the end goal of getting back to the Premier League.

A lack of experience and nous in the team was what Tony Mowbray identified as the team's problem after their play-off semi-final defeat to Luton Town, last season. Those two legs showed that it's hard to be really successful with a very young squad.

If they can build up their spending resources through long-term effective deals, by buying young and selling high, and then use that money to build a proper Championship-winning team, then Louis-Dreyfus and co will be lauded for years to come.