SUNDERLAND new-boy Dame N’Doye feels like he has been handed a Premier League lifeline and wants to make sure it doesn’t come to a quick end this summer – just like it did last season.

N’Doye made his first appearance for the Black Cats when he emerged as a late substitute in the second half of Tuesday night’s narrow defeat to Manchester City at the Stadium of Light.

The result has done very little to help Sunderland’s fight to beat relegation with 14 matches remaining and N’Doye has been here before. The 30-year-old moved to Hull City on the final day of the transfer window a year ago in a bid to fulfil his ambitions of being a success story in the English top-flight.

But, despite scoring five times in 13 appearances, Hull went down and N’Doye ended up heading for Turkish club Trabzonspor six months later.

N’Doye said: “It is good to be back. It is always a pleasure to play in England. I am sure it will help that I was at Hull in the battle. We had some good players there but we also have them here, so we have to make it count this time and stay up.

“I didn’t want to leave the Premier League. Sometimes it happens. I would like to stay here and establish myself here and keep us in the Premier League.”

N’Doye failed to score in his 12 outings for Trabzonspor, seven starts, but Sam Allardyce thinks he has enough in him to give Sunderland’s survival push a boost over the next few months.

The Sunderland boss was aware of him anyway but having spoken to Steve Bruce, a close friend and Hull manager, it helped convince him the loan gamble was worth taking.

“Sam is a good guy, he is similar to Steve Bruce,” said N’Doye. “They are almost the same. There’s not a big difference between the two. Steve hasn’t spoken to me yet about it since I moved, but hopefully this will work out for me.”

N’Doye was one of four new signings to appear against Manchester City, with Jan Kirchhoff impressing in a defensive midfield role and Lamine Kone shining at the heart of the defence following his move from Lorient. Whabi Khazri also showed some nice touches on the flank after his £9m switch from Bordeaux.

But N’Doye is not getting carried away after one encouraging performance with a clutch of new signings, insisting Sunderland will have to carry that on into Saturday’s trip to Liverpool and beyond to stand any chance of staying up.

The Senegalese front-man said: “The new players showed they are ready, they showed they are ready to go on and play which is a good sign for the future.

“It is all good and they need to keep that up. It is not about one game. It is every game. You have to improve every game and you have to play like that every game.

“It was a hard game, but we did well and it was nice to get on. In the second half we played well, we were compact, we were strong also. We needed a bit more luck, which was why we didn’t score. But we showed we can compete with the good sides.”

N’Doye does not want to spend the majority of his time at Sunderland on the bench, but he accepts it might take time for him to work his way ahead of Jermain Defoe in attack if Allardyce wants to stick with a lone striker system.

He added: “I am waiting my time to play. I played nine minutes on Tuesday, but at least we showed we could score goals. It is a team game and we all have to work together to pull us out of trouble.

“We have more games to come and we have to be strong, we need to show strong mentality. We have lost this one but we have to go into the next one. If we can win three or four games then we will be on the way up.”