Kevin Phillips pinpoints Sunderland trio that 'will be a threat to any Championship side'

Despite taking only a point from their clash with QPR at the weekend, there were plenty of promising signs for Sunderland.

The Black Cats were fired into a 2-0 lead courtesy of goals from Ross Stewart and Ellis Simms, a flourishing new strike-partnership that, with Alex Pritchard behind them, Phillips believes could be a major weapon for Sunderland going forward.

Phillips said: “As a manager when you bring a new player in like Ellis Simms, I think he’s a fantastic signing, you kind of think ‘where is he going to play’ because Ross Stewart has been their talisman and generally played up-top on his own.

"You don’t bring someone like Simms in unless you’re going to play him and I didn’t think it would take long before he put them together.

"As a manager you want your partnership to hit the ground running and as a new player you want to hit the net as soon as you can and he’s done that. He’s already shown his quality.

"He’s a young lad and hasn’t played an awful lot of football but what he will do in this Sunderland side is he will get service with Pritchard playing behind them.

"When I watch them in the first two games they played together, it looks like the relationship is there. It’s not perfect of course and there’s still a lot of work to do.

"This front three will be a threat to any Championship side this season and they will score lots and lots of goals.”