Ballard interview: Sunderland’s ambition, ‘complimentary’ Kompany and leaving Arsenal

Daniel Ballard is sitting in his car outside the gym, readying himself for another rehab session. It is a scene he knows far too well at only 23 but this latest injury — to his hamstring, sustained in Northern Ireland’s 1-0 loss to Finland in March — has been the toughest yet.

Not in terms of severity, but what he missed out on. The Sunderland centre-back had become a stalwart of Tony Mowbray’s defence as they launched a late promotion push in the second half of the season, but Ballard ultimately missed the final 10 league games, including the play-off semi-final loss to Luton Town.

He was forced to watch helplessly at home with his girlfriend, having been told that after doing a session in the morning he should rest rather than travel — a level of caution he wishes he had employed two months earlier.

“It was a small injury supposed to keep me out for around two weeks but I rushed it back too soon on a couple of occasions and it turned into a more serious one. It’s a lesson learned as I had never had a hammy injury before,” Ballard tells The Athletic.

“It was in a niggly area so I was rushing back for the play-offs but when I was out running I was pushing it too soon and so it set me back. I’d probably have pushed it again for the play-offs, which is stupid as I wasn’t ready, but I felt the pressure to be there.”

Mowbray joked the day before the play-offs that he, the 59-year-old manager, was the club’s only recognised centre-back such was the scale of the injury crisis. Ballard and his centre-back partner Danny Batth both missed the two legs and it proved costly: Sunderland had to play 21-year-old right-back Trai Hume, who only joined from Linfield in January, alongside utility man Luke O’Nien; they lost 3-2 on aggregate and a return to the Premier League after seven seasons outside the top division passed them by.

“It was tough to watch when you know you could affect the game, especially against Luton who bombarded us with long balls,” Ballard says. “In the game against them a month before, me and Danny had a good battle with their two strikers and we felt we did really well against them. The boys stepped in for us but they naturally don’t have the same physicality and Luton is the one team you probably need that against.”

Alas, Sunderland did not make it, Ballard’s summer holiday has been taken early, and he has already started pre-season a month earlier than team-mates to try and ensure the injury is completely healed before the new season.

Injuries have been a common obstacle in his career so far. He suffered a fractured foot in August which saw him miss four months of football, meaning he played only 22 games in all competitions this season. Knee surgery was required three games into his first senior loan spell at Swindon Town in 2019, which kept him out for a year. He managed a great season at Blackpool in League One to secure promotion via the play-offs in 2020-21, but his time at Millwall the next year was interrupted after sustaining another knee injury which kept him out for three months.

His current hamstring issue is the only muscle injury he has had but he believes that only occurred due to playing catch-up from the training sessions missed earlier in the season. “I haven’t played as much as I would have liked with the injuries but I think once I get a full season the sky is the limit,” he says.

Ballard came up through the ranks at Arsenal alongside Emile Smith Rowe and Reiss Nelson, two players now in Mikel Arteta’s first-team squad. He was there from the age of eight, his parents driving him from Stevenage several times a week, before moving to north London at 16. He was never the star growing up though, having to fight for his scraps of playing time. Only after his first successful loan at Blackpool, aged 21, did he feel like he may actually make a career from football, such was his self-doubt. That partly comes down to the fact that, although his CV reads he had 14 unbroken years at Arsenal, he had left the club once before his permanent departure last summer for £2million.

“They tried to release me twice, actually. It’s a funny story,” he says. “At under-14s, Liam Brady sat me down and gave me the release papers. I was pretty distraught and in the end he changed his mind as there were new Dutch coaches coming in. He gave me another two years, mainly because he felt sorry for me I think.

“At under-16s I got released properly. I went on trial to a few teams. I went to Southampton for a bit but broke my ankle so couldn’t play and had to sign up for my A-Levels to stay in education. After that, I was on trial at Stevenage when I got the call from academy director Andries Jonker asking me to play against Bayern Munich.

“I played Arlesey Town away with Stevenage’s under-18s and three days later was at Bayern’s training ground playing. I had a really good game and Jonker offered me a two-year scholarship on the plane home. But during that period it was quite tough. The reality of not having a team was quite daunting as I had naively always thought I would be alright in the end.”

That reprieve was exactly what Ballard believed he needed at that stage of his career. He didn’t know his identity as a footballer. He was a right-back whose lack of athleticism was being shown up, and when moved to midfield he was too defensive-minded for Arsenal’s style of play. After he was moved to centre-back he found clarity.

There can be a reluctance from EFL managers to loan centre-backs from big Premier League academies as there is a perception that academy football is too sterile and doesn’t prepare defenders for the rough and tumble of playing in the Championship, League One or League Two. Not so for Ballard. “I was fine as my strength was always my aggression — winning tackles and headers,” he says. “Defending came naturally to me. I just had to grow into my body over those two years with the under-23s and work on my use of the ball.

“I had Freddie Ljungberg as my coach and he was brilliant. We had been working on heading and defending until then but he opened up my view on football. It was tough at the start and I didn’t like it as we would spend hours working on patterns of play from goal kicks.”

But that time prepared him for his move to Blackpool in League One and, after being fast-tracked into the Northern Ireland setup, he made the decision to move to Millwall in the Championship. Then last summer he made the switch to Sunderland, though he was close to joining Burnley, who went on to win the division, after former Manchester City captain Vincent Kompany identified him as a target.

“He was very complimentary,” says Ballard. “He said it was one of the positions he wanted to nail down and he felt I could perform what he wanted to do on the ball. Burnley had just come down from the Premier League and Sunderland had just come up from League One but felt I could play more of a pivotal role at Sunderland. Burnley have had a great season getting promotion but I feel that I’m a big part of the team.

“My whole career I have gone into games nervous and unsure. ‘Oh, he’s a quick striker, I need to be careful’, ‘If I get the ball where am I going to play it?’. I had these worries, but from the end of last season at Millwall and during this season I feel really confident in myself for the first time. It’s exciting going into games now.”

Sunderland are building a reputation as a home for young talent, especially those seeking to bounce back to the top flight having left big Premier League clubs. The attacking trio of Patrick Roberts, Jack Clarke and Amad Diallo are three examples who captured the imagination this season and Ballard believes Mowbray’s ability to harness that flair is why the squad is united in wanting the manager to stay amid speculation about his future.

“His man-management is his big strength. We all feel like he’s backing us and he gives us that confidence to play freely,” says Ballard. ‘The football we played is really good to watch. He knows we’ve got great young technical players and he plays to our strengths.”

Diallo is one young player who has burst to life at Sunderland, registering 14 goals and three assists in 39 games, following a difficult first loan spell at Rangers. There was a lot of hype around the Manchester United winger after he left Atalanta in 2021 for an initial fee of around £19million, aged 18, but Ballard believes he can live up to it.

“Some people get to the Premier League and find they either have it or they don’t. He’s got it,” Ballard says.

With an exciting young squad, it may have turned out differently for Sunderland had Ballard, Batth and Scotland striker Ross Stewart been fit for the play-offs, but now the focus is on 2023-24, and there is a belief that they could carry the momentum from 2022-23 and go one better.

“Last year maybe surprised us, as the play-offs wasn’t probably in our plans, but the football we played and the talent we have is exciting. Hopefully we keep hold of the players we have and add another couple,” Ballard says.

“It’s been nice to get some recognition the last few years. I feel like a very good Championship player when I’m fit but hopefully we have a great season and can reach the Premier League. That is the aim for me now, whereas before it was just to make a career.”

(Top photo: Ian Horrocks/Sunderland AFC via Getty Images)