The worrying Sunderland transfer reports that hint towards painful summer window

Earlier this week, I received a message. It contained a blurred photograph of a man standing on a railway station platform, suitcase at his feet, face turned ever so slightly away from the camera. Such was the hysterical tone of the sender, you might have been forgiven for assuming, before further inspection, that it was a verifiable sighting of an aged Tupac Shakur, or perhaps Bigfoot himself. It was neither; it was simply Dan Ballard, Sunderland defender, albeit separated from the Sunderland squad.

Cue instant panic. Why was he not on a flight to Spain with his teammates? Which filthy, pilfering lower mid-table Premier League charlatans had faxed over the bid that had triggered the switch that had tripped the wire on the transfer Rube Goldberg machine, facilitating his hasty, inevitable exit like a glass marble escaping down a drainpipe? Why must this cruel world and the gods who sculpted its being make sport of our every waking passion, as flies to wanton boys?

Alas, it transpires that Ballard is actually (only and thankfully) injured. Back the handgun went into the bedside drawer with a wry chuckle and a relieved, ‘Not today, old friend’. The Black Cats released a statement, well, stating that he will be sidelined for six weeks or so, and the Mackem DEFCON was deescalated accordingly. Nevertheless, this is the life of a Sunderland supporter this summer; twitching at every creak of the floorboard, jolting at every knock on the door, just waiting for the moment that Fabrizio Romano pops up on the timeline - like Michael Myers at the kitchen window of a secluded log cabin - with one of his customary ‘Here We Go!’ tweets.

Of course, Ballard is by no means the only gem for which Sunderland could be looted over the coming weeks. Already, Big Fab - with his heavily imbalanced espresso-to-blood ratio and his limitless monthly data plan - has piped up rather rudely to suggest that Udinese are have sent a ‘formal proposal’ to prise Pierre Ekwah away from the Stadium of Light. Here’s hoping that Kristjaan Speakman responded with a ‘formal proposal’ that they ‘do one’.

Then there is Trai Hume. Mutterings on the grapevine suggest that Turkish giants Galatasaray have had a bid of around £7 million rejected for the moustachioed torpedo, and that Sunderland will not entertain any offers beneath £10 million. To be blunt, that figure still feels frighteningly low. Whack another couple of noughts on the end, just to be safe. Even the faint prospect of a sale elicits within me an enraged rush comparable to that bit in This Is England where Stephen Graham pulls a machete on a shopkeeper and tells him to ‘get his f****** hands off’ that bald kid who looks a bit like Jordan Pickford. In other words, I like Trai Hume a lot, and if he leaves I might have to seriously reconsider my plans for a knuckle tattoo.

And then we have Jack Clarke; Jack Clarke, with his fresh trim like one half of Whack!, North Yorkshire’s third-best Wham! tribute act; Jack Clarke, all wiry limbs and casual sorcery and flick-knife wit; Jack Clarke, running arabesques across my doleful mind. Will he stay? Who can say for certain? He hasn’t left yet, of course, but that could change any day now, and the mere notion of him going is enough to make my heart slump like a clod of wet paper towel pasted to the grubby ceramic of my rib cage.

For what it’s worth, Clarke himself does not appear to be explicitly seeking an exit, and he continues, rather teasingly, to give the distinct impression of a man who expects to be part of Regis Le Bris’ travelling contingent to face Cardiff City on August 10th. That being said, with Sunderland’s resolve yet to be properly tested, and with Ian Harte perched on his client’s shoulder like a little cartoon devil, nothing is concrete. He is Schrodinger’s Clarke, somehow simultaneously a Sunderland and not a Sunderland player all at once.

Indeed, the only absolute on Wearside at the present moment in time is the absolute limbo in which the Black Cats find themselves. Welcome to the purgatory of the Mackems’ jump scare summer. Only 41 days left to endure.