Everything ex-Sunderland boss Tony Mowbray said about Kristjaan Speakman, Kyril Louis-Dreyfus and recovery

Tony Mowbray recently delivered a lengthy interview with the BBC covering his bowel cancer diagnoses and Sunderland exit.

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. The former defender is now on the mend and has made several appearances in recent weeks: one on BBC Radio Tees to cover his boyhood club Middlesbrough and one at a talk-in at Sunderland with BBC Radio Newcastle commentator Nick Barnes.

Here, we take a look at everything Mowbray said during the interview:

Working with Kristjaan Speakman and Kyril Louis-Dreyfus

“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.

“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.”

Emotional conversation with Mike Dodds

“Gosh, I remember getting emotional telling Doddsy,” Mowbray said regarding his cancer diagnosis. “He was asking how are you, gaffer all right everything good and I said oh no mate it's not good and he said what do you mean it's not good I said oh I've just been diagnosed with bowel cancer and I'm gonna have to leave but he got quite emotional as well, to be honest.

“I was going into the unknown I genuinely thought I was big and strong and I was going to get through this no problem, I'll get through an operation with no issues and yet the moments those days when I was picking myself off the floor the days when I was emancipated I'd been I've been to the toilet 40 times in an hour and um and you've got no fluid left in your body and your body's crinkling away your voice you could hardly talk because your throat was so choked up because there's no fluid.

“It's horrific really and that's what I can say and yet your family get you through it's the people who care and love you know get you through it my wife at a drop of a hat would drop everything and just drive me two and a half hours to Manchester because I needed to get to the and the doctors were there and the nurses were ready and everything was there for me but yeah it was tough.

“Birmingham have been amazing to me very supportive, the owner is an amazing human being the chief executive Gary Cook has been fantastic Craig Gardner, the sporting director, was unbelievable with me, and I felt as if we were had a chance to be all right and yet they did always say that things were going to change at the club and they were going spend some money and yet probably the plan wasn't that they were going to get relegated.

“It's easy for me to say no I don't think we would have got relegated we just won the last two games against Sunderland and against Blackburn Rovers and we were on we were pushing pretty good I think, but listen it is what it is and Birmingham have now done what they're doing you know they're going to move into a 60,000 seater stadium in three or four years time and hopefully they'll be pushing to be in the Premier League if not in the Premier League by then the owners talking.”

Mowbray’s desire to work in football again

“I hope I can stay fit and get back to work and do what I love,” Mowbray told the BBC. “I just love working with young footballers and trying to inspire them to want to get better and improve and be brave with the ball and play but we'll see what happens as I say.

“The new year is really in my mind when I start really thinking about what's out there. Is there going to be something out there? And it's almost sad football, isn't it because I would never chase anybody's job, I'd never go to a game where the manager's under pressure.

“But the sad thing about football is you have to win games, and some people will lose their jobs, and some people will win leagues, and I will wait until the new year when I hope that my body's back to almost 100 per cent and from there, let's see what's out there and see whether I can get back to work and do what I want to do.”

Mowbray added after returning to Sunderland for a talk-in: “I'm glad I could come back here. I've been to one match recently. That was before my stoma bag removal because, after that, the last six to seven weeks have been really tough um but I feel strong enough now as if I'm on the journey and as I say, hopefully, the new year I should be feeling strong enough to try and get back into the game”