AS a head coach with almost two decades of managerial experience, Tony Mowbray has seen plenty of high-profile young bosses come and go without being able to live up to their lofty reputations.

When the Sunderland boss casts his eye over Vincent Kompany and Michael Carrick, however, he is confident he is looking at two managerial novices who are set to follow up their high-flying playing days with equally-successful careers in management.

Kompany leads his Burnley side into action against the Black Cats this evening having established a 13-point lead at the top of the Championship table in his first season in charge of an English team. Carrick took over a Middlesbrough side languishing in 21st position when he took on his first managerial role in the autumn, and in the space of less than six months, has led the Teessiders to the brink of the automatic-promotion places.

Both were world-class players; both have the potential to be world-class managers. And while it might be early days for the duo in terms of their experience of life in the dug-out, Mowbray has been hugely impressed with what he has seen so far.

“I look at Vincent, and I’m pretty sure he’s got an extremely bright future,” said the Sunderland boss, whose first permanent managerial position was with Hibernian back in 2004. “Forget being a football manager, I think there are certain qualities as a human being that really make you stand out.

“There are one or two managers in the league at the moment who I feel have a really good intelligence about them, about how to run a football team. Vincent Kompany is one, and Michael Carrick is another.

“It’s exciting that these new, young football coaches are coming along. As an experienced coach, I never fear that. We’ve got some really talented young coaches in our office that I love bouncing ideas off.

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“The best coaches have a thirst for knowledge and a way with ideas, and I see that with Vincent Kompany and I also see it with Michael Carrick. With the two of them, you get a feeling that they soak things in. They soaked in the history of their playing careers, and they’re bringing it to the Championship as managers at the moment, and undoubtedly, they’ll go on to do it in the Premier League.”

Not all great players go on to become great managers. Roy Keane enjoyed early success with Sunderland, but his managerial career fizzled out long before he had come close to reaching the same heights he scaled as a player. Steven Gerrard and Frank Lampard exploded onto the managerial scene, but both are currently out of work after struggling in the Premier League.

Kompany’s continued ascent is not guaranteed, but Mowbray sees enough in the way the Dutchman deals with his players to be convinced that he has what it takes to get to the very top in management.

“I’m sure he (Kompany) learned a lot as a player on the pitch, listening to one of the world’s best-ever coaches (Pep Guardiola),” he said. “I think Vincent is a student of the game.

“I spent half-an-hour with him after the first match, and he came across as a student of the game. He’s a very humble man, and has a lot of emotional intelligence that can take the team along with him. In my view, that’s the way forward for coaches.

“You have to be able to connect with your footballers. It’s not us and them, you have to be part of their journey and they have to feel that you’re teaching them and showing them new ideas. Every day should be a learning day, and I feel as though Vincent is on that journey of being a young coach who is testing what he believes in and what he’s learned over his career. He’s doing very, very well.”

It helps, of course, that Kompany took over at a club that had only recently been relegated from the Premier League, and that could therefore benefit from the parachute payments that are bestowed on clubs that drop out of the top-flight.

Kompany has done brilliantly to forge such a successful side, but he was able to spend a combined sum of around €8m on Manuel Benson and Anass Zaroury in the summer and splashed out around €11m to sign Lyle Foster in the January window.

Sunderland can only dream of spending such sums at the moment, so while Black Cats fans might be looking enviously at Burnley’s position at the top of the table, Mowbray feels a degree of context is required.

The Northern Echo: Sunderland head coach Tony MowbraySunderland head coach Tony Mowbray (Image: Ian Horrocks)

“We shouldn’t really compare ourselves with Burnley, and yet it’s wrong to say that because this is a massive football club,” he said. “Burnley, with total respect, might be a huge club that were in the Premier League for a number of years, but it can’t be the size of this football club.

“So, somewhere down the line, we have to get the recruitment right, we have to get the coaching right, we have to get everything right to win on the field, so that we give the team and club the chance to experience the Premier League again and enjoy it together.

“The fans deserve the Premier League, and yet the context of this season is that we have just spent four years in League One. We bounced out, but the other two teams that came up with us are really struggling to stay in the league.

“We have to grow the club. The league is so different now, because of the money trickling into the Championship from the Premier League, that you can’t just bounce through. We did it in the 1980s (with Middlesbrough), bounced through two leagues, but there’s not many teams can do that now because of the strength and depth of the teams coming down.”


Sunderland (probable, 4-2-3-1): Patterson; Hume, O’Nien, Batth, Gooch; Neil, Michut; Roberts, Amad, Clarke; Gelhardt.