Following the departure of previous manager Alex Neil, Mowbray took the helm of Sunderland and managed to steady the ship.
Despite missing important first-team players for much of the first half of the season, the former Blackburn manager has inspired Sunderland to 13th place in the standings, three points outside of the final playoff spot.
Mowbray stated that he rates hard work and honesty very highly and stressed that he likes to communicate with each individual player in his squad.
The Sunderland manager acknowledged that it can be challenging to communicate with everyone when the group is huge and noted that the hardest part of the job is to keep players outside the starting line-up in the loop with the entire team so that the player can be ready to deliver when he is needed.
“I just like honesty”, Mowbray told Sunderland TV.
“I like hard work.
“I try to communicate with them and it is very difficult when you have 25, 26 players to communicate every day with every player and sometimes problems arise because it slips through your fingers that you forgot to talk to this player who is not playing this week.
“That’s life; that’s football.
“I have had that for 20 odd years.
“You try to keep them in the loop of where they are and what they are doing and how well you think they are doing.
“But the most difficult part of the job is trying to keep the players on the fringe, on the outside of the team, keep them motivated, keep them going, keep them up knowing that there is a chance around the corner if there is a injury you are in and you have got to be ready.”
Mowbray’s squad will take on Jon Dahl Tomasson’s Blackburn Rovers on Boxing Day at the Stadium Of Light.
