STEPHEN Ward is wary of the threat posed by former Claret Andre Gray at Turf Moor this weekend.

Gray scored 33 goals in 78 games for Burnley after joining from Brentford ahead of the 2015/16 Championship season, including 23 in that campaign to fire Sean Dyche's side to the title.

After scoring nine goals in his first Premier League season the 26-year-old left Turf Moor in the summer after a contract impasse, joining Watford for £18million.

Gray is still finding his feet at Vicarage Road but his two goals in 15 games so far have helped the Hornets to eighth in the table, just three points behind Burnley, and he will be keen to make his mark on his return to East Lancashire this weekend.

But Ward believes the Clarets defence will be forewarned about Gray's abilities.

"We'll just get one of our lads to kick him early on," he joked.

"We know all about him and it'll be good to see him. We all know what he did for us. He's got pace, power, he can score goals, it's as simple as that."

Saturday's clash at Turf Moor sees the Premier League's two surprise packages so far go head-to-head.

While Burnley have made a flying start to the campaign, with 25 points collected so far, Ward believes there is still more to come over the next 23 games, although the first target remains collecting a further 15 points to nudge the Clarets past that mark of 40 for safety.

"We're very pleased with the start but we know that we can still get better and play better," Ward said.

"It's like that with every team, you always think there's more to come. That's why we work so hard every day on the training pitch, to try and nudge ourselves that little bit higher and get better at more things.

"We'll keep doing that, we'll keep working hard, we've not come here and been turned over in a bad manner. We've given everything and given a good performance and we were probably a little bit unlucky not to come away with something.

"We need to keep it going. There are no easy games in this league. We've got Watford to come and they got a good result against Tottenham. They're a very creative side and it'll be another test for us. We'll go in to it head on as we always do.

"It's great but first and foremost we'll look to get to 40 points and then we'll set ourselves a new goal. That's always the way with our manager - get the next points on the board as quickly as possible and that's what we'll look to do against Watford next week."