ENGLAND striker Kevin Phillips is gearing himself up for the job of blasting Sunderland into Europe next season.

The 27-year-old goal ace, whose 30 Premiership strikes won him the European Golden Slipper award two seasons ago, blames missing his club's pre-season build up for his more modest haul of 18 League and Cup goals in the last campaign.

But Phillips has tried to give himself an extra edge by reporting back for training two weeks early, and after a hard week in France he said: "I couldn't be happier with the way things have gone so far."

This time last year Phillips was nursing a knee injury which kept him out of all the pre-season friendlies and he was made to realise how much the build-up work matters when the season started.

He said: "I don't think many people realise how much work players are put through to make sure they are ready for a football season.

"It's really important that you are just right for the season - that's something I am well aware of now after what happened last season.

"When you are a player you just want to play and you don't really give much thought to questions of fitness levels, but there is no doubt that it did affect me last season.

"But in professional football, and especially in the Premiership you have to be at your absolute best if you are really going to be successful."

Phillips knows he is benefiting for the carefully planned pre-season programme, even though it has been gruelling at times after the summer lay-off.

He said: "I'm feeling very good at the moment. The fitness work has been very hard but it has really sharpened us all up after the summer break.

"There's still a lot of pre-season work to do before the start of the new season. But, touch wood, I don't think there is any doubt that myself and the rest of the lads will be ready for it when the first whistle blows."

* Phillips is one of six players rested for this afternoon's game at Mansfield, but Republic of Ireland international Niall Quinn returns to action after missing the week-long training build up in France.

Quinn is likely to link up with French free-transfer striker David Bellion as manager Peter Reid gives his £3.6m signing Lilian Laslandes and Danny Dichio, who scored the winning goal against Calais Racing Union, a break along with Michael Gray, Emerson Thome and Stefan Schwarz.

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