ANDY GRAY believes an appearance at Anfield this afternoon will help to convince him he is back in the big time - especially as he should have been playing in the Championship at Preston.

Liverpool's first Premiership home game of the season since lifting the European Cup in May happens to be against Sunderland and Gray will be in the visitors' forward line.

During the past 14 days his career has taken a massive turn for the better after clinching a £1.1m switch to Wearside form Sheffield United, where he started the campaign.

Gray scored on the opening day of the Football League season in the Blades' 4-1 win over Leicester and, a week later, he found the net on his Sunderland debut in the defeat to Charlton.

Now the 27-year-old is looking for that goalscoring form to continue at Liverpool - while his old United team-mates are trying to claim the points at Deepdale.

And Gray knows where he would rather be. "I played at Anfield for Leeds about ten years ago and it was a special occasion for me as a youngster," said Gray, whose father Frank made 146 appearances for Sunderland after signing in 1985.

"It doesn't really get much better than playing the European champions there. I would have been at home to Preston instead had I still been at Sheffield United. It's a little bit better knowing I'm going to Anfield.

"You can't really think about what the stadium and the Liverpool team will be like. It's just another game. You can't worry about their reputation. You want to play in the Premier League and you can't feel inferior. You come up against teams like that every week."

Having spent years at Leeds United before moving to Nottingham Forest in a £200,000 deal in 1998, Gray knows all about the difficulties of a well-supported club struggling to make an impact in the top-flight.

And, after last week's defeat to Charlton on Wearside fuelled the critics' belief that Mick McCarthy's men will be relegation candidates, the Harrogate-born forward insists Sunderland should not be judged on one display.

"It was annoying to lose the first game but there are 37 games left and we have to remember that," he said. "It was only the first game of the season. It's disappointing but it's not the end of the world.

"The lads don't take much notice of the pressures. You have to have confidence in yourself. It's always going to be hard. You have to try to yourself justice like what West Brom did last year.

"There is a resilience in there. The first game was a disappointment because we're looking forward to it more than any other. But there are always freak results on the first day and you have to put it behind you and be positive."

Gray, who has been capped once by Scotland, has been notably impressed by the Sunderland squad he has been added to - although there have been no big money acquisitions this summer.

And believes he has already witnessed the special team spirit which earned Sunderland promotion last season.

"The lads here have all played in England, even if it has not been in the Premier League and that helps," said Gray, who was in the Leeds side that played against Manchester United and Arsenal during the 1996-97 campaign.

"We all fit in well to the squad where had the manager brought foreigners in they would have taken time to adjust. Hopefully we can prove the manager right to bring players in like that.

"It gives us all hope and the fact most of the players have come from the same league helps team spirit. Everybody is pretty much together and striving together."