Luke O'Nien explains Premier League ambitions - and how he plans to get there with Sunderland

Luke O’Nien has spoken of his ‘dream’ to get to the Premier League, and explained how he plans on getting himself there.

O’Nien played his 200th game for Sunderland in the 1-1 draw at Blackpool on New Year’s Day to help keep the Black Cats’ Championship play-off hopes alive.

He has come an awful long way since joining from then League Two Wycombe in 2018. However, he is determined to go even further.

“I still want to get there,” O’Nien said of his Premier League ambitions. “It was my dream as a kid to get to the Premier League and I’m still working towards that.

“I’m just always looking to improve, there’s no such thing as a perfect game and there are always people better and above you.

“We just have to keep working for that so that when we come up against better players we are ready.”

It is very difficult to think of a Sunderland player who has shown the kind of consistent improvement that O’Nien has over a period of years.

He is a completely different footballer to the one he was when he joined and, while much of that is down to work on the training ground, lot of it is also due to the work he does in his spare time too.

“I just watch every goal that goes in on Match of the Day to see where I’d put myself positionally,” O’Nien said. “I think that’s just how my brain works now.

“When goals go in I just watch it back, put it in slow-mo and see what I would have done, and sometimes you can’t stop them.

“I just love the game and love studying it and am just trying to get better so when we go out there we are the best version of Sunderland we can be.”

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