Tony Mowbray arrives as guest of honour at West Brom event days before Sunderland clash
The Albion Foundation welcomed Sunderland manager Tony Mowbray as a guest of honour days before they take on West Brom in the Championship.
The Black Cats and the Baggies will take each other on at the Stadium of Light on Monday evening (12 December) as club football resumes after the World Cup break.
Mowbray, though, was more than happy to show his face in the Midlands despite the upcoming clash as he attended an event held by The Albion Foundation.
His welcome to the stage was met with loud cheers by those in attendance, as a video on the Albion Foundation’s Twitter showed, before he went on to discuss his life and time at West Brom.
Monday’s game will be Albion’s first since the World Cup break as they look to move up from 21st while Sunderland (10th) have already played Millwall on home turf and won 3-0.
Behind enemy lines
Mowbray won’t have learned much if anything about Carlos Corberan’s side and potential tactics by attending the meeting but he may have gotten a taste from the fans if he decided to mingle.
Even if he did get told something about how the Spaniard likes to play, it won’t be anything the Black Cats scouts and analysts won’t have already picked up by watching videos of his former sides and West Brom in the past few matches.
He is a man who just lives and breathes football and he will take any opportunity he can to reminisce about the good, bad and ugly times throughout his career.
Corberan and his squad will be hoping that they can add to the latter categories on Monday night when they head to Wearside and their dominant showing against Stoke before the break is a good indicator.
Sunderland may well be slightly more prepared having had one game to shake off the rust already but Corberan and his team have had a month to prepare for this one game so if there is a weakness, they have found it.
In other West Brom news, some attention is already on the January transfer window and this Scottish Premiership ace could be heading for the Midlands.