TOMMY MILLER expects winger Andy Welsh's red card to be rescinded after an 'embarrassing' performance from referee Barry Knight - as Sunderland focus on earning their first Premiership points at home to Manchester City tomorrow.

Knight should inform the Football Association and the Wearside club today that his decision to send Welsh off during Saturday's 1-0 defeat at Liverpool was a wrong one. And the former Stockport County left midfielder, who is facing a three-match ban, should be available to keep his place against City.

Miller is hoping the Orpington official will see sense, although he admits it has come too late to stop the Black Cats slipping to defeat at Liverpool.

"Andy says he hasn't even touched him and it looks that way," said Miller. "The referee has gone to the linesman and the linesman has given it but quite why that's the case is strange.

"In fact it's embarrassing, really embarrassing. It will probably get rescinded but what use is that to us now?

"That sending off came at a bad time for us. We were one goal down and we were beginning to press forward more. There were a couple of other strange decisions. We should have had a couple of free-kicks and we could have had a penalty for a handball."

But Sunderland - soundly beaten a week earlier by Charlton - have taken great heart from a promising display at Anfield where they never looked like being pushovers.

Having Andy Gray operating as a lone striker helped frustrate Liverpool but it also meant Miller and Co had their work cut out in making the most of the visitors' forays forward.

But Miller said: "To come to Liverpool and play like we did has got to give us confidence. It's no good if we don't take the good things out of the way we played in to Tuesday.

"As things stand we have still got no points and that's not the start we would have wanted to the Premiership. But we are encouraged by the performance.

"We are at home next and we will no doubt attack more, let's just hope we can get the points on the board sooner rather than later."

He added: "It is disappointing because I genuinely believe we had the chances, especially first half, to have got something from this game.

"I know Liverpool had their opportunities but we had a lot of possession in key areas. We kept the ball well and did that against a good side like Liverpool. They are the European champions after all but we gave them a good game. We passed the ball around well at times."

For the second week in a row Sunderland conceded a stunning free-kick. First Danny Murphy struck for Charlton and Xabi Alonso curled in the winner on Saturday. And Miller said: "It was a quality goal. In the Championship you can maybe get away with giving away fouls in that sort of area but you can't do that in the Premier League."