One year on from Tony Mowbray's Sunderland arrival - what we've learned and what might lie ahead

It can seem a little hard to get your head around the fact that it was only a year ago that Alex Neil headed to Stoke City, leaving behind a club and more specifically a fanbase wondering whether this would mean a premature end to the rapid progress made in the months previous. 

That such fears seem so often a distant memory is the most telling verdict you can deliver on Tony Mowbray's tenure to date.

Had you told any Sunderland follower in those fractious days that a year later one play-off finish would have been secured and that the early signs were that another was distinctly possible, it may have raised an eyebrow. Had you told them that Mowbray would oversee this while trusting the youth of his squad wholeheartedly and implementing one of the most enjoyable brands of football seen at the Stadium of Light, it might well have raised both eyebrows.

And yet that is undeniably what has happened, even if along the way there have been troughs to navigate as well as peaks to enjoy. 

When Jeff Stelling broke news of Mowbray’s impending arrival on Soccer Saturday, the reaction generally was measured rather than effusive. Mowbray’s track record and his work reestablishing Blackburn Rovers as a competitive Championship side demanded respect; that he had done so with one of the youngest squads in the division suggested a neat fit for the task ahead.

The perception was of a sound, pragmatic choice. It has proven to be that, but a little more too: the results have broadly been as hoped but most have enjoyed the journey more than initially expected. Mowbray will be the first to tell you that he is well aware of his reputation of being a little ‘dour’ on camera, and that he would rarely be perceived as a glamorous choice compared to some of his contemporaries in the English game. 

With the aid of a bag of revels and some hair-raising tactical decisions, his first year at Sunderland has seen him confound the ‘old school’ stereotype at just about every turn.

Few with his years in the game can still talk about it with such genuine enthusiasm, and fewer still are able to move with its innovations both on the pitch and off it. 

Mowbray’s first success reflected his experience, watching the Norwich City game that preceded his appointment and recognising that even in defeat this was a team where little needed to change. So Mowbray kept his hand well away from the wheel and just let the momentum roll until the first bump, injuries to Ross Stewart and Ellis Simms requiring a rethink and a reset. 

That night at Reading was arguably the birth of Moggaball, part pragmatism and part idealism. If you have no strikers and a glut of deeply talented but diminutive attacking midfielders, then it makes sense to look for the ball and keep it. At the root of it, though, is Mowbray’s instinct to take the attacking, aggressive option in both selection and in tactical approach. The gambles are often high stakes and when they haven’t worked, they really haven’t. Even seeing the words Roberts, Pritchard, central midfield and Stoke City will be enough to make tens of thousands wince but there have also been so many points won when the injury list and the gaps in the squad ought to have been ruinous. We have seen Sunderland win with Aji Alese their most advanced player, with a midfield pivot of Luke O’Nien and Alex Pritchard, without any recognised central defenders and more often than not without a recognised centre forward. Sunderland have punched well above their weight, done so persistently and with style.

The head coach has undoubtedly benefited from the ever-increasing stability and modernisation behind the scenes at Sunderland, the most obvious consequence of which has been drastic improvements in the technical quality of players recruited. Mowbray’s skill has been in recognising the moments in which to bring those players into the fold, with both Amad and Pierre Ekwah examples of players who after an adaptation period became irrepressible forces in the starting XI. 

It has proven to be the neatest of fits. Partly due to how it is run and partly due to how it is coached, Sunderland has stopped being seen as a basket case doomed to repeat a cycle of mistakes but one of the most exciting projects in the UK. Within the bubble itself it can often feel a little more complicated than that, but the trajectory of the curve is not in dispute even accounting for some inevitable, intermittent frustration.

All of which has made the persistent speculation over Mowbray's longer-term future one of the more curious subplots at the club over the past six months. The claims that Mowbray’s position is far from secure were various and relatively persistent, and often not particularly obviously correlated to the team’s on-pitch results.

The factors for the emergence of those stories were clearly myriad and never always reflected some fundamental truth that Sunderland are merely waiting for the right moment to move on. Clearly, Sunderland’s journey has drastically changed how they are perceived and they have now become an attractive proposition to ambitious young coaches and their entourages. As such, you strongly suspect that some of this noise has been driven from the outside and that has placed Sunderland in a difficult position. At a club of this size it is not feasible to respond to every claim and nor is it always helpful, often fuelling the fire rather than quelling it, lending credence and a platform even in denial. Sunderland are also open in admitting that they track the managerial market in the same way they do with players, which is the reason they were in a position to so quickly and successfully establish Mowbray as the right candidate a year ago.

The risk of their approach, though, was always that it could leave the head coach feeling more than a little underappreciated and particularly around the play-off campaign, the speculation felt not just unfair but fundamentally disrespectful regardless of where it was being driven from initially. Mowbray was clearly unsettled, openly wondering what the summer would bring.

Given the profile of the coaches who were persistently linked with the role during that time, predominantly younger and always with continental experience, Mowbray was seemingly left with the sense that the club hierarchy were in the medium to long term eyeing up a different direction.

In one press conference last season, Mowbray joked that there was a pattern in his career whereby his successors often seemed to enjoy budgets and ambitions above and beyond what had come before. The point was he was well aware that his reputation as stabiliser, player developer and club builder had left the perception that something else might be needed to get to the next level: at times he has clearly felt this may be his destiny on Wearside.

A few months on the picture feels a little clearer and for now, a little more settled.

Mowbray’s efforts in securing a sixth-placed finish last year have triggered an extra year on his current deal, meaning that it will not potentially begin to run down and provide a distraction of a talking point in the months ahead. Kristjaan Speakman’s fulsome praise for the head coach in his review of a busy summer transfer window last week also spoke to a club with cohesion and focus after a strong end to an often challenging transfer window. To end that period with depth and variety in most areas has shown there is broad strategic alignment and understanding.  Clearly, the onus is on Mowbray to keep driving the side forward and to keep delivering results - that applies to any head coach regardless of club or circumstance.

Speakman’s comments suggest that while planning for all eventualities, Sunderland understand that they are onto a good thing.

Last season the club concluded a process of establishing the fundamentals of what they wanted Sunderland to stand for under this new ownership and hierarchy. The tagline ‘bold, creative, industrious’ can be found all over the Academy of Light and regardless of how he may have been seen before his arrival, Mowbray has proved to be all three. He has demonstrated the experience to handle the day-to-day reality of the punishing second division, and the idealism to commit to developing a progressive style and a home for young players within it.

Speakman insisted that internally, there has been ‘no uncertainty’ and that Mowbray is doing a ‘very, very good job’.

It draws a line for now under that often unhelpful noise and as Mowbray heads into this second year in charge, both he and the club have the foundation to build a genuine legacy. Few to hold his role in the modern era can say the same.