PETER Reid will watch Monday's Reebok clash when Wanderers meet his old club Sunderland with an open mind.

But he knows the basement fight between the club where he began his career and the team of players he assembled at the Stadium of Light could be a defining moment of the season.

"Both sides have good players who can turn a game and for that reason alone it could turn out to be very close.

Yet Reid, a great friend of Wanderers boss Sam Allardyce, is at pains to point out the potency of the attack that his successor at Sunderland, Howard Wilkinson has at his disposal.

His old club are currently second bottom of the league but the ex-Black Cats boss believes that they have the quality to be much higher.

He feels that some of their performances this season have merited better results, but adds that the key for them could be the return to full fitness of former England striker Kevin Phillips who he describes as "the real threat".

New boss Wilkinson can also rely on Tore Andre Flo and Marcus Stewart - two players that Reid signed in August.

Reid says: "Sunderland have more than enough quality in attack, their problem has been confidence and it might only take one game to revive that."

Full story later today