Tony Mowbray reveals team selection disagreements at Sunderland under Kristjaan Speakman

Tony Mowbray has stated his sacking at Sunderland was probably prompted after the former head coach failed to listen to team selection advice from his bosses.

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.

During an interview with 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.

“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.”

You can listen to Tony Mowbray’s full interview with Sunderland commentator Nick Barnes on the BBC Sounds application by following this link.