TONY MOWBRAY admits he did not know he had triggered a new contract extension at Sunderland until Jack Clarke started congratulating him about it on the training ground this week.

Mowbray’s initial contract, which was signed when he replaced Alex Neil in the early stages of last season, was due to expire next summer.

However, it emerged earlier this week that Sunderland’s sixth-placed finishing position last term had automatically triggered a one-year extension that means the North-Easterner is now tied to the Stadium of Light until the summer of 2025.

Mowbray claims never to have read the fine-print of a contract in his life, and has not been involved in any discussions over his future this summer despite the speculation that built towards the end of last term when the Black Cats hierarchy were linked with a potential move for a new head coach.

As a result, he was not aware of this week’s developments until Clarke approached him at the Academy of Light.

“I didn’t know anything about it,” said Mowbray, whose side return to action after the international break on Saturday with a trip to QPR. “As we were walking into the training ground the other day, Jack Clarke was giving me the thumbs up and pretending to sign something in the air. I just said, ‘What are you on about?’

“I was totally unaware of it. I think what’s happened is that there was a clause in my contract that I’ve probably never read, and it’s kicked in because of our league finishing position last year.

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“If we finished in a certain position – I think it was either finishing in the top half of the table or the top ten – that my contract got extended.

“I don’t really know, and to be honest, I’m not really too interested either way. I’ve never been overly-interested in contracts, I just like football and footabllers, and I want to come to work.

“Of course, contracts have to be right because at the other end of a contract, generally when you’re losing your job or you want to move on, then that’s where you really need legal people to make sure that everything’s right.

“But I think, even before the play-offs, the contract extension kicked in towards the end of last season because of where our finishing position was going to be. So, I think my contract actually got extended before the play-off matches last season.”

With this week’s developments having taken him by surprise, Mowbray freely admits he does not know whether his contract contains additional clauses relating to Sunderland’s performances this season.

He has not asked whether another extension will kick in if the Black Cats repeat last season’s achievements in making the play-offs, with the fickle nature of football management meaning he accepts he will always be in a precarious position if things do not go well.

“I genuinely don’t know whether there’s something that kicks in again,” he said. “If we finish in the play-offs again this year, then I don’t know if that means things change again. I don’t know.

“I’m happy just to work. They’re a great set of lads, and as long as I feel as though they want to get better and improve, then I’m happy to keep going with them.

“It feels light-hearted, but I don’t go looking through contracts clause by clause. I just try to do what I do every day, and what will be, will be.

“If it hadn’t gone so well last year, maybe the club would have thought, ‘Right, that’ll do. We’ll get shot and try someone else’. Let’s see how this season goes. There’s no guarantees in football. Football managers live and die by their results, we all have to go along with that.”