Huddersfield Town boss reveals class Tony Mowbray message in verdict on Sunderland defeat

Mowbray was captain at Celtic when Fotheringham was taking his first steps in the game as a youngster, and the pair met as head coaches for the first time on Wednesday night.

Though Sunderland ran out 2-0 winners Mowbray was impressed by the organisation of a Terriers' side who had been in dire form before Fotheringham's arrival.

Sunderland were missing a number of key players at The John Smith's Stadium but the hosts were also without Sorba Thomas and captain Tom Lees.

"It means a lot," Fotheringham said.

"He told me the other day you're a fantastic side and what you've done so far is incredible. This team was dead and buried at the start of the season and you've got them playing with confidence.

"To hear that from a manager with that experience gives me a lot of positivity moving forward but I'm not a guy who needs compliments going forward.

"You all know the people I've learnt my trade from, I know what I need to do to build this team, layer it and get them in a situation where they're going to win games.

"I've got to almost got to push through this difficult period and get to the World Cup break so we can get these players back and recover, and have more depth in the squad.

"I think there'll be a lot of nice cards at the end of the season if we keep this team in the league and also from a lot of parents as well whose sons have got debuts almost every week.

"It's all young lads and they're desperate to come in and work hard so I can't fault them but we do have a bit of naivety at times.

"That only gets better with the work you do on the training pitch and learning from what you do on the field in the live games."

Fotheringham insisted he had seen enough to give him optimism for the challenge ahead.

“I am bitterly disappointed with the result, but the performance levels were really high.

“I thought that we played on the front foot, played exciting football, and created some good chances, while creating real problem for Sunderland.

“In the situation where Duane Holmes goes one on one with the ‘keeper, normally nine times out of ten he slots it past and into the net, then the flip side is that they go up the pitch on the counter-attack and we should probably have better security behind the ball, but that is something we have got to work on.

“We kept pushing until the end and we had some young lads in there as well who stepped in, and they did excellently, they didn’t look out of place at all against a strong Sunderland team.

“That was definitely not a team that looked like bottom of the table tonight, and we know if they keep performing like that and showing that level of commitment and the confidence, that we’re going to win games."