Revealed: Championship side made serious cash offers for Sunderland utility man Luke O’Nien

Sunderland owner Stewart Donald was kind enough to join us on the Roker Rapport podcast at the weekend.

During his appearance, he discussed the departure of George Honeyman to Hull City and explained how it was purely a football decision, pointing out the fact that we could have cashed in on Aiden McGeady, Luke O’Nien and Jon McLaughlin but chose not to.

A lot is made of the fact that we cash in, etc. We didn’t agree to sell Aiden McGeady, we didn’t agree to sell Luke O’Nien and we didn’t agree to sell Jon McLaughlin.

When asked whether someone had made an offer for O’Nien, Donald replied “Yeah”.

The club that made a move for O’Nien was last season’s League One champions Luton Town.

The Hatters were pipped to his signature last year by Sunderland but they returned this summer with some serious offers for the versatile midfielder towards the end of the transfer window.

Luton have changed manager since their initial interest in O’Nien, with Nathan Jones eventually being replaced by Graeme Jones, but their interim manager from last season Mick Harford remains at the club as their chief recruitment officer.

You can listen to the interview with Donald in full by clicking play on the YouTube video below.

Photo by Ian Horrocks/Sunderland AFC via Getty Images