Joao has entered the final year of his current contract with the Royals, who lost one of their most influential players from the 2021/22 season in John Swift on a free transfer this summer.
The 29-year-old missed almost half of the Championship games last season for Reading, who avoided relegation to League One by the skin of their teeth.
Mowbray is well aware of the Angolan forward’s repertoire having seen it first-hand during his time in charge at Ewood Park.
The former defender paid tribute to Royals manager Paul Ince for getting the best out of Joao and the rest of the squad, given their recent run of results but believes his charges can cause Reading enough problems on Wednesday night.
Mowbray will be without top scorer Ross Stewart for a number of weeks and has challenged the rest of the team to step up in the Scotland international’s absence.
“I think Joao is an important player for them. I had Lucas when I first joined Blackburn Rovers, on loan with them, a very talented individual that they missed for a large part of last season but now he’s back fit, scoring goals”, Mowbray said in his pre-match press conference.
“Paul Ince has obviously galvanised him and done an extremely good job as from their last five, they’ve won four, beaten the likes of Stoke and Middlesbrough and found a way to get the results.
“They’re tricky games for us, but we believe we can go to Reading and give them problems.
“We’ve talked a lot this week about who’s going to score the goals, who’s going to step up now that Ross Stewart is out for a few weeks.
“That’s the challenge for the team and we will see during these games who will step up and put the ball in the back of the net for us.”
Sunderland are currently in eighth place in the Championship table while Reading are in third after a run of four victories in their last five games.
