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One of Sunderland's top transfer targets, USA International Jozy Altidore, has spoken of his desire to move back to the Premier League.
Speaking yesterday the 23-year old told a US radio station;
It is a fantastic league, anyone will tell you that. If you look at everything, the Premier League is probably the biggest league in the world.
Everybody knows that and it would be a pleasure to play in a league like that again.
Which seemingly opens the door for Sunderland to step up their interest and thrash out a deal with his current club AZ Alkmaar.
Altidore looks to have grown in the last year or two into the player he always promised to be, netting 23 times in 33 games in the Eredivisie, and he's also gone on record as saying he feels he has improved since a nightmare spell at Hull City aged just 19;
I have played 100-plus games since Hull. Playing there at that age and playing in the best league in the world, you can't expect to hit the ground running.
Some of my performances there were not as bad as people think, some of them were actually pretty good.
I have come a long way since then. I am almost a different player and I have learned a lot. So I don't think there is any resemblance to that time if I went back to the league any time soon.
If Altidore was to arrive at Sunderland, it's expected any fee would be at around the £4-5m mark, and could well provide the perfect foil for Steve Fletcher with his eye for goal, power, pace and strength.