Boyhood Sunderland fan Harrison Jones on Roker End season ticket and three favourite players

Harrison Jones hopes to follow in Dan Neil and Anthony Patterson’s footsteps at Sunderland.

The attacking midfielder made his debut for his boyhood club off the bench in the Carabao Cup against Preston North End at Deepdale at the start of the season.

The 19-year-old attacking midfielder regularly joins Régis Le Bris’ first-team group at the Academy of Light during training sessions and is captain of Graeme Murty’s under-21s side, who are playing in European competition this season after last campaign’s success.

However, having reached his life goal of playing for Sunderland at such a young age, Jones is keen to achieve more and wants to emulate some of the Black Cats’ success stories. Neil is currently the club’s team captain and has featured 154 times in all competitions with Patterson on 129.

“It's definitely a dream come true to play for Sunderland,” Jones told The Echo. “If I'm being honest, it's probably my only life goal I ever had so now that I've achieved that, I never, ever thought I'd do it.

“Thinking back to a six-year-old myself, I would never, ever dream of that. I'm obviously delighted to do that. Now, once I've achieved it, I want more and more. I look at players like Dan Neil, and Anthony Patterson, who are now regulars in the first-team, came through the academy, and that's who I look up to and try to emulate.”

Jones also admits that Sunderland’s first team and the set-up at the Academy of Light is helping young players to step up and join the senior group under Le Bris.

“All the first-team are all nice guys,” Jones added. “They're all quite young as well, so it gives us a good relationship bond with them because we can relate to similar experiences to them.

“When we're over there, they're always supportive and demanding, which is what they have to be because if they're trying to get promotion, they can't lower their standards. So it's a case of us rising to their standards, which is a challenge and we want to be able to be a part of.

“It is about being the best player you can here, almost to give them a headache, as if to say, I want to be over there and when you do go over there, it's your opportunity to impress and just keep trying to break into it, which is all we can do.”

The youngster also revealed that like his teammate Neil, he also used to have a season ticket at the Stadium of Light before becoming a player.

“I had a season for two years,” Jones said. “The first year was East Stand and then I joined the mental Roker End for one year. Probably a bit too much for me at one point but I really enjoyed it.

“My favourite ever is Stephane Sessegnon! Forever my favourite ever player. He was probably the one that made me want to play where I play watching him, and he scored at St James’ in the 3-0 win which is probably my favourite ever Sunderland game. Wahbi Khazri and Jermaine Defoe as well.”