Steve Bruce says West Brom will be targeting their first home game of the season as a potential opportunity for three points.
Albion crashed to a 6-0 defeat at Chelsea last weekend in their first game since winning promotion back to the Premier League as Championship runners-up to Newcastle United.
The Baggies will be desperate to get back on track with away games at Liverpool, Arsenal and Manchester United coming up, plus a home clash with Spurs.
Hawthorns chief Roberto Di Matteo has tasked his side with getting back on track at Sunderland's expense, but his counterpart Bruce says his side have the ability to throw a spanner in the works.
And the Sunderland manager thinks a repeat of last week's first-half performance against Birmingham over the full 90 minutes would go a long way towards achieving that goal.
"West Brom will look at the game and think their season starts with us," he told safc.com.
"Make no mistake, they'll be targeting us and thinking that if they're going to do anything in this league they must try and take some points from Sunderland at home.
"Equally so, if we've got any aspirations we have to go down there with the mental attitude that it's a game we can win.
"If we play like we did against Birmingham and have 11 men we will be mightily close because we played some excellent stuff last week.
"The first 45 minutes was a really top class performance. Hopefully we can reproduce that and stay with 11 men - that will give us a chance."
Lee Cattermole's suspension means Bruce must select a new skipper as the team captain serves a one-match ban.
Potential contender John Mensah is out with a hamstring injury, but Bruce appears to have finalised his plans already.
"I've made my decision," he confirmed. "It's a one-off game. Lee will learn from last week, but for this game I have to pick a new captain and I'm sure he'll do a sterling job."
