PADDY McNAIR has spent plenty of time back in Ballyclare, walking around the grounds of the farm he calls home and reflecting on his first, frustrating, season at Sunderland.

When he returns to action, in pre-season if his rehabilitation continues to go to plan, the young Northern Ireland midfielder hopes his first steps will be to gear up for the Premier League.

After all, his move last summer from Manchester United to Wearside, was not supposed to end in relegation to the Football League at the first attempt and without him kicking a ball competitively for the best part of seven months.

That, though, is McNair is facing up to. Yet despite the frustrations, the smile and occasional joke during his interview at the Academy of Light training ground highlighted his approach.

The 21-year-old is a positive individual and doesn’t see the point in thinking about returning to action as a Championship footballer in August. He retains faith his team-mates can pull off another successful fight against relegation.

McNair is resigned to not play again this season, even if his recovery from the cruciate knee ligament injury he sustained in the 3-0 win over Hull City in November is going to plan. But is he thinking of playing in the Football League for the first time in his career?

He said: “I don’t think you can think negative thoughts. There’s ten games left, eight of those are against teams in the bottom half of the table, you just have to think positively, we’re confident we’ll get the points to get out.

“I’ve watched every game and, especially the last game at Burnley, I thought that was one of the better performances, the lads are putting the effort into get out of it, they just didn’t get the luck to score that goal, we had a few good chances.”

Having had to endure ten Premier League defeats and just three wins in his absence, McNair’s injury has certainly not helped his own personal frustrations. He had started to settle into life in the North-East before the injury.

He said: “I want to be out playing. I’m a young lad, that’s what you want to do, when you go to the Stadium and watch the lads play, you just want to be out there. Setbacks like that you just have to deal with it, get over it and come back stronger.

“This is my first serious, serious injury. It’s annoying but I’ve got friends and family around me, to keep my head up, I’m sure I’ll definitely come back stronger.”

His family back home in Northern Ireland has been important. He has spent plenty of time on the County Antrim farm where he was raised, although he hasn’t got his hands dirty too much over fears his knee could suffer further damage.

“I’ve been back a couple of times, I’ve not being rounding the cows or the sheep up or anything, I’ve been staying away from that,” said McNair. “I’ve been able to take a walk round the field with the dogs, but not putting the knee under any stress.

“I’ve been back three or four times [since the injury]. I got nine days at Christmas. Obviously when you play football you don’t get home, so that was nice at the time. I’m sick of holidays, I just want to get back playing.”

The break has given him time to reflect on his burgeoning playing career, though, after asking Jose Mourinho last summer to leave to find first-team football. At Sunderland he was promised more of a midfield role, having been used as a defender by Louis van Gaal at Old Trafford.

He said: “I think you can just sort of reflect on the last few years, what you’ve done, when you have time out like that. Even watching the games, when you’re playing you don’t realise how good it is to be playing, how well you’re actually doing. When you step away from it, you realise that and it makes you want to come back even stronger.

“I have watched all types of players. I don’t want to sit in the centre circle, I want to get about. My hero when I was younger was Stevie G. All the teams in the Premier League have fantastic midfielders, so you can look at them all. Look at Burnley the other week, they had Joey Barton playing. He is different to … Paul Pogba … but you can see what other bits they have to their game.”

McNair’s rehabilitation has been shared with Duncan Watmore, who suffered the same injury soon after in December. Jan Kirchhoff is the only other certain absentee for the trip to Watford on Saturday, as the injury list continues to ease.

But McNair said: “I have always been a week ahead of Duncan because of what happened, so I always wind him up by telling him I will be a week before him coming back. It’s a good bit of crack.

“Some days I come in and I’m devastated and can’t be bothered, he can be like that too. But we help each other because some days the exercise might hurt my knee and then it will hurt him as well, so we know it’s normal. If you were on your own you wouldn’t know if it was just you.”