'I knew what I was coming into' - Tony Mowbray has say on Sunderland recruitment model

Tony Mowbray happy to leave recruitment to others as he explains Sunderland transfer process.

Tony Mowbray has given some insight into how Sunderland recruit players, and he says he is absolutely fine with having less of a say than at previous clubs.

Mowbray’s predecessor Alex Neil appeared to be unhappy with how little control he ultimately had over transfers at Sunderland. Shortly before he left for Stoke he spoke about how he felt he needed more experienced players to step up immediately, while the recruitment team were mainly targeting younger ones to develop.

However, Mowbray does not appear to have similar concerns, even if he admits it’s largely new to him to be leaving recruitment to others.

"I knew what I was coming into. I'm the head coach - it's the first time I've ever been head coach, I think," he said.

"I remember leaving West Brom in 2009 and I'd left something in my office, I went back the next day to pick it up and the word 'manager' had been burned off my car parking space and the words 'head coach' were getting painted on. I was thinking 'head coach? What's this?'”

Although Mowbray can be seen as a little old school, he says he actually welcomes the recruitment structure at Sunderland because it allows him to spend more times with players and less time talking to agents.

"I love footballers, I love working with them, trying to get inside their heads and helping them work at their game and see how far they can get in their careers,” he said. “It's great for me when I get all these calls from agents. My phone never stops ringing, agents saying 'transfer window is coming Tony, what do you want? What do you need?'

"There are a million agents out there and they've all got the best players for you. I just pass them Stuart Harvey's number now, I don't even need to talk to them! It's great.

"They try to develop relationships with you and become your pal but you know they're not your pal, they are just hoping they can do a deal that's going to be beneficial to them.

“I pass them to Stuart and then somewhere along the line, Stuart will have a list of £1m players, £500,000 players, £100,000 players, and free transfers, and we'll look at where we think the best value is for the football club.

"If I can give advice and thoughts of what we need and what will improve us, I do that in the meetings."