Reported Nottingham Forest transfer target Lawrence Shankland has revealed that he would be open to talks with Sunderland.
Shankland was linked with the Reds for a third time this week after having previously been mentioned as a transfer target in January and last summer.
The 24-year-old has also been linked with Championship rivals Stoke City, while Sunderland were credited with an interest in July.
Shankland has attracted interest from English clubs thanks to his excellent goalscoring record.
He scored 24 goals in 26 matches in the Scottish Championship before the 2019-20 season was ended because of the coronavirus pandemic.
The two-cap Scotland international bagged the same number last campaign, prompting Dundee United to sign him from Ayr United.
He is unproven in the top tier in Scotland but that doesn't appear to be bothering clubs south.
And he has offered his thoughts on reported interest from Sunderland, saying he would be willing to talk to the Black Cats if their interest became concrete.
Speaking to the What the Falk podcast, Shankland said: "Sunderland are obviously a massive club. That goes without saying."
"Everybody knows about them and everybody who has watched the Netflix thing would have heard of them.
"Hypothetically speaking it is hard to say. But if Sunderland were interested in you, you would obviously speak to them."
Shankland says the interest probably came about because of his history with former Sunderland boss Jack Ross, who was in charge of the Stadium of Light side in the summer before his sacking earlier in the campaign.
"I think they maybe watched me a few times but it was more people putting two and two together because I had worked with Jack Ross before," Shankland added.
"As soon as there was rumours it made people think there was something in that and it was made more than what it was.
"There wasn't an official offer made or anything for me to turn down. It didn't go that far.
"If they were interested I didn't really hear about it."
