Tony Mowbray: 'Hard to understand how Patrick Roberts was in League one - he's a Premier League talent'

Patrick Roberts should have been nowhere near League One, according to the Sunderland coach.

Tony Mowbray says it’s a total mystery to him how ‘Premier League talent’ Patrick Roberts ever found himself playing in League One.

Roberts was a key player in hauling Sunderland out of League One last season after joining from Premier League champions Manchester City in January.

He signed for Man City as a teenager in a big-money move from Fulham, and had a two-year loan spell at Celtic, where he often sparkled in the Champions League.

Mowbray being mystified about how a player like that was part of Sunderland’s League One promotion bid last season is, then, understandable, and he says he hopes to help him get back to playing at his former level.

"I find it hard to understand how Patrick Roberts was in League One,” Mowbray said. “Something must have happened in his life or his career, because his talent is Premier League. And Jack Clarke is a potential Premier League talent.

"Managers can't teach Patrick Roberts to skip past players like he does, stick the ball through people's legs and then bend it in the corner, but I can teach him about his positional play and how hard he has to work and I can drive him really tough.

“If he's 25 now, Patrick, he's potentially got five, six, seven, years if he wants to get to the Premier League.

"If he is the best player on the pitch every week and then the phone rings, why would you stop someone going off and earning money that you can only dream of. I see my job as to inspire young men, really, to help them get better.

"I'm fully aware of my own abilities, I'm not Pep Guardiola or Jurgen Klopp, but I can connect with human beings and young guys and try to help them fight and work hard and understand positions on a football pitch."

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