‘Expect A Response From Sunderland’

Kevin Phillips has made it clear that Derby County should expect to face a fired-up Sunderland outfit this evening.

Derby will make the trip to the Stadium of Light for their 2017/18 Sky Bet Championship opener.

Phillips, Derby’s first-team coach, insists Friday’s opponents will be desperate to prove a few doubters wrong.

The Black Cats finished bottom of the Premier League last season and were thrashed 5-0 by Celtic in their final pre-season fixture last weekend.

Phillips, who holds legendary status at Sunderland for his goalscoring exploits in the north east during his playing days, feels Simon Grayson’s side will be keen to prove a point.

He told RamsTV: “I am expecting a response from Sunderland, certainly in terms of the defeat to Celtic and a few things after that.

“History tells me, and I have followed their fortunes for some time after playing there, Sunderland respond to setbacks pretty quickly.

“You can’t go into the game thinking any other way or you will come undone.

“We are well prepared for it. It is a place I know very well and if we go up there and start well, putting pressure on, things can go wrong pretty quick in terms of the home team.

“We will certainly be looking to do that on Friday.”

Phillips scored 134 times for Sunderland between 1997 and 2003.

His goals fired them back to the top flight in 1999 before he went on to score on a regular basis in the Premiership, as it was known at the time.

Although it will be another emotional return to a stadium where he was so successful, Phillips is only focused on helping Derby get the season underway with a positive result.

He said: “I love going back to Sunderland but first and foremost I am going there as a Derby County man.

“I want us to win the game, it’s as simple as that.

“I always get a great reception there and it’s nice to see some old friends, but I hope I am celebrating a Derby win.

“For an hour and a half, I hope we can put more misery on them; but after that I’ll wish them well.

“Three of my kids were born up there and I follow them quite closely.”

Phillips, who is approaching two years on Derby’s backroom team, feels the Rams’ pre-season was a positive one.

The build-up to the new season has seen Gary Rowett’s side display some encouraging signs, as well as areas which still required some improvement.

In all, Phillips believes Derby are in a good place ahead of the big kick-off.

He said: “When you get to this stage of pre-season, when you’ve played a lot of games, you just want the campaign started.

“Ideally we would have wanted a home game but what a match it is to start for us up at Sunderland.

“The stadium up there is magnificent, the atmosphere is great and hopefully our players can respond to that.

“After a pretty good pre-season the manager now has a tough job to pick a starting line-up for the game.

“We’ve had some good performances in the last month but we know there’s still stuff we need to work on as well.”

He added: “It’s the same for every club. No team goes through a pre-season playing brilliantly and without any setbacks.

“We’ve had some tough tests, especially against the two German teams in Kaiserslautern and Hoffenheim.”