Gray: Kev was super from day one – his finishing was just incredible

Michael Gray says that he and his Sunderland team-mates knew that Kevin Phillips was a special talent after his first training session at the club.

Phillips arrived at the club in July 1997, after three years at Watford, and Gray admits he was something of an unknown quantity at the time.

He would go on to score over 30 goals in his first season, ultimately becoming one of the club’s greatest players of the modern era.

“I always remember, and this is the thing about Sunderland at the time,” Gray said.

“We didn't really have stars.

“Niall Quinn was obviously the biggest name in the dressing room and we'd followed Niall's career because he'd been very successful.

“When Kevin walked through the door, we didn't know what to expect.

“The first day of training, there's always that bit of banter going on, everyone had said their hellos.

“We had a shooting competition at the end of training, as a lot of clubs do.

“It was me or one of the other lads, we said to him 'you know there's big expectations on you to hit the back of the net, don't you?'. “He just said, 'watch this'. “I've never seen anything like it until this day. The finishing was just incredible.

“I just said, 'I hope you do that on matchday'.

“He was just sensational and what a partnership.

“As good as he was, the experience of Niall, it was just an automatic click and it worked.

“You forget about half the goals, the angles he would [score from], the bravery he would show to get on the end of things.

“But he wasn't just a finisher, he was a complete player.”

Gray himself made well over 300 appearances for the club during one of its most successful periods, and was also capped by England during his time playing for his hometown club.

*Chris Maguire is already a fans’ favourite at Sunderland – and further endeared himself to the Wearside faithful with a hilarious Newcastle United quip.

The forward was taking part in a question and answer session on the Black Cats’ official Twitter account, and was posed a question on whether he would rather play for Newcastle or Rangers.

Maguire, a Celtic fan, takes a sip from a mug emblazoned with their logo and says: “Let me think about that one… none!”