{"id":433021,"date":"2026-05-05T07:07:07","date_gmt":"2026-05-05T07:07:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/433021\/"},"modified":"2026-05-05T07:07:07","modified_gmt":"2026-05-05T07:07:07","slug":"trai-hume-sunderland-and-northern-ireland-defender-reflects-on-whirlwind-career","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/433021\/","title":{"rendered":"Trai Hume: Sunderland and Northern Ireland defender reflects on ‘whirlwind’ career"},"content":{"rendered":"

Since swapping the Linfield blue for the red and white of Sunderland<\/a>, Hume has embedded himself as a key figure at the Stadium of Light.<\/p>\n

The defender played a crucial role in the club’s promotion to the Premier League before signing a new five-year deal at the club in 2025.<\/p>\n

This season, he has been a defensive mainstay alongside Northern Ireland team-mate Dan Ballard and has chipped in with a goal and an assist.<\/p>\n

“We had a job at the start of the season to stay up, and we’ve done that,” he continued.<\/p>\n

“We’re not far off the European spot, but we’re just pushing every day to get better and improve. <\/p>\n

“If we can get up there at the end of the season, then it’s something that we can be proud of. “<\/p>\n

At international level, Hume’s development has coincided with the rise of other younger talents such as Liverpool<\/a>‘s Conor Bradley and Crystal Palace<\/a>‘s Justin Devenny. <\/p>\n

Despite missing out on a World Cup spot after being beaten in the play-off semi-finals by Italy, Hume added that it is an exciting time for the youthful squad.<\/p>\n

“We’re obviously disappointed off the back of the Italy game, but we’re a young side and we’re only going to get better and improve with playing top nations that we have been in the last couple of years,” he added.<\/p>\n

“I think obviously we’re disappointed about the game, but we’ll learn from it and come back, and we’ll obviously get better and better.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Since swapping the Linfield blue for the red and white of Sunderland, Hume has embedded himself as a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":433022,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[61,60,43],"class_list":["post-433021","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ireland","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/433021","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=433021"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/433021\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/433022"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=433021"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=433021"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=433021"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}