As a Head Coach Tony Mowbray is not involved in contract negotiations, but believes Sunderland is an 'amazing vehicle' for Ross Stewart going forward...
NO INFLUENCE
"I'm not really privy to it. There are things I can influence and there are things I don't influence."
KEEP ROSS
“I’m sure they are. I think it’s only right that this football club tries to keep its best players, and yet there has to be a middle ground somewhere."
AGENT CRAIC
I don’t know Ross’ agent and have never spoken to Ross’ agent so I don’t know who he is. I’m sure he thinks he has Mbappe on his hands. Whether we can get to a number that makes Ross feel warm in his stomach that we really want him and want him to stay, if we can get there fantastic and sign a new deal."
FINANCIAL STRUCTURE
“If we can’t get there because it breaks all the structures and is going to cause carnage behind the scenes with six other players who think ‘hang on a minute why is he earning that much and I’m earning this’ the club has to make those decisions, and sometimes it’s a really hard decision. If you have to sell an asset, you have to sell an asset."
HONESTY
“That’s why I believe you have to have honesty really because the fans deserve honesty. The fans just want the best players but sometimes you can’t have the best players because otherwise three years down the line your club is in financial difficulty. You're going into administration, you get docked 20 points, because you've broken the rules on finance trying to stretch yourself too far."
AMAZING VEHICLE
"That’s how I see it but I hope we can get something sorted out. I believe he’s got an amazing vehicle to progress his football career, a team that creates chances, lots of technical players that can put the ball in the box in the right areas.”
DEALS
“If he scores 20 goals, 25 goals the phone is going to ring off the hook, and all he has to do is knock on the manager’s door or Sporting Director’s door and say: “I know so and so has been asking about me, I’d like to go.’ and we’ll go: ‘right as long as it’s £30million we can do it.’ They’ll phone up and say ‘we’ll give you £28million and if we win the league we’ll give you another five’ and we go; ‘deal done, let’s get on with it'."
PLAYER VALUATION
"I don’t really know what conversations are going on but I’m pretty sure having been doing this job for 20 years the cogs are turning, the conversations are being had. The agent is probably saying he’s worth 50-grand a week and the gap is too big. It’s just whether you can get to a point where they think that’s the best deal you are going to get off that club, or we think we can’t pay anymore than that. When you get past that you either sell him or get the deal done.”
HEAD COACH VS MANAGER
"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. 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?'"
PHONE CALLS
"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. 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."
STUART HARVEY
"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."
