The former Sunderland head coach was asked about the Black Cats ahead of this weekend’s game with West Brom

Tony Mowbray has stated he holds “no resentment” towards Sunderland - and added he hopes to meet his former club in the play-offs.

The former Middlesbrough, Celtic and West Brom manager took over from Alex Neil during the club’s first season back in the Championship and masterminded Sunderland’s top-six finish and play-off campaign with Mowbray’s Premier League dream ended by eventual promotion-winners Luton Town in the semi-final.

Despite rumours suggesting Sunderland were looking at other managerial options the following summer, Mowbray remained at the Academy of Light and took the team into the new season. However, after 15 months in charge, Mowbray was sacked, with the Black Cats ninth in the Championship.

Mowbray would then take over at Birmingham City before having to leave his role after receiving a bowel cancer diagnosis. Since recovering from the illness, the 61-year-old has since taken over at former club West Brom, who are pushing to cement their spot in the play-offs this season and face Sunderland at the Hawthorns this Saturday.

"I always want to win for the team I am at. I like Sunderland as a football club. I like the people. You have to respect that Sunderland, with its amazing stadium and fanbase, is an amazing football club,” Mowbray said ahead of the game against the Black Cats to BirminghamLive.

"I really enjoyed it. We won lots of games. We developed lots of young players. It was and maybe still is the youngest team in the league for all my period there. We had a very young team but performed to good levels and won lots of games and made it exciting for the fans, I think. The current manager is doing just that as well.

"I wish them well but not better than us. Hopefully, there is a scenario where we could see them in the play offs. It would be two amazing games. I think both teams would be a good addition to the Premier League but as would Leeds, Sheffield United and Burnley as well.

"There is no resentment from me. I have only got good things to say about the supporters and the amazing club that it is and the facilities it’s got. For me it’s an honour to have Sunderland AFC on my CV along with some other pretty amazing successful managers in the history.

"They have to get it right as every club has to get recruitment right and it has to pick the right manager to guide the ship but it is a huge football club and well worthy of playing in the Premier League with the numbers and the atmosphere it can create. But you have to earn that."

What else has Tony Mowbray said about Sunderland recently?

During an interview with Nick Barnes, which aired on BBC Radio Newcastle’s Total Sport show on Monday, November 18, Mowbray strongly suggested that he believed the end at Sunderland came for him because of team selection differences with owner Kyril Louis-Dreyfus and sporting director Kristjaan Speakman.

“I think Sunderland's a club with a model,” Mowbray told Barnes. “The owner wants to do it the way he wants to do it and that's fine. If anything, it was the first time I'd really worked under a sporting director and it was interesting. Some of it was really good and it was the first time really I'd had conversations about the team and about players.

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“At times, I found it tough, I suppose, but I'm very conscious to say that I understand football where it's going, that every club's going to have sporting directors, and that's fine. The sporting director's job or role, in my mind, is probably to support the coach to make sure that the team functions well and wins games along the way I found that interesting at first time for me, but I feel it's good for my career moving forward that I've had that experience and I'm not just a one-man band where everybody has to come to the gaffer to get things done.

“I think ultimately the end came probably because there was a difference of opinions on selection really I think and I found it difficult that there was influence really to pick a different team sometimes or to give other people opportunities and that's because of the model. They want young players to get the opportunity to play and to increase their value and that's fine. I'm almost from a school where it's about winning football matches for the people who pay their money to come and watch and try and get another three points and be proud to be at the top of the table like they are now.

“They're doing amazingly well but obviously it's a long, long season and the test is in front of them, not behind them, but they've done amazing to start off the half and because of them players I mentioned earlier that seems to be very much the core of the team still and I would put great faith in that group of players that they can achieve great things because they care about each other, they work hard for each other and I'm looking forward to seeing how this season unfolds really.

“There is a concern, I suppose, about the depth of it all and how many injuries they might pick up at certain positions and have they got the depth in behind it which probably fits the model of what the owners are trying to do that young players at times need to be in the team, whereas when we were winning and doing well and the players were doing well, I personally like to keep them going and keep winning and keep doing well.

“Whereas the owner’s model is probably more of every now and then take him out, take him out, put him in, put him in, make sure he's bloodied and ready for it in case there are injuries and suspensions and I understand that model very well and I'm probably not the manager of Sunderland because there was once or twice where I probably didn't heed the advice I was being given and I wanted just to win the next game and pick the team I wanted to pick.

“I understand the model, I understand the way it works and I wish Sunderland only well. They've been amazing for me; I mean the stuff around my health, the support they've given me has been fantastic and I can't have a bad word to say about the club because it's an amazing club. I tell everybody in football how honoured I was to manage this monster of a football club with over 40,000 people every game it's a brilliant football club and it deserves success and I genuinely hope that success is just around the corner for them.”