“I understand it, there’s nothing worse as a coach than losing a football match, it ruins your weekend, your stomach is twisted and you don’t sleep because you think about all the decisions. You have to have confidence and belief. I didn’t go into that that much detail with Michael but I was just saying to keep going, you’ve got a good team and players. But of course I’m happy for ourselves and especially our fans today.”
Tony Mowbray reveals key to Birmingham City comeback and sends classy message to Michael Beale
According to Tony Mowbray, he assured his players that they will overcome their one-goal disadvantage at the break on Saturday.
As Mowbray faced his old team for the first time, Sunderland had taken the lead thanks to a goal from Jack Clarke, but after halftime, Jordan James and Koji Miyoshi altered the tide of the match.
The Birmingham boss said he made a couple of tweaks to his side at the break but says the turnaround was more about his players showing better composure on the ball.
“We always try to be front-footed, I think the goal we conceded knocked our belief a little bit,” he said.
“I’ve talked a lot about the balance between trying to build and trying to be positive, it’s no good trying to build and never getting past the halfway line, sometimes you’ve got to turn the opposition around and get up the pitch. We did that a little better in the second half.
“The message at half time is that we will score, because we’ve done so much work on it. And if we score one, this place will take off and we can go and score two, three. They made it happen and I’m very proud of the group, the desire and determination. They’ve worked really hard for each other.
“When the team are so wound up before the game, they sometimes forget to play. They want to compete and it was just about calming them down, and playing in the spaces we talked about. If Koji comes deep into the little pocket the right back needs to be running, if Koji stays wide, where the full back is going… it was little tweaks but nothing [major] – in my mind it was about [giving] the confidence that we will score. We will score a goal and we have to get the bodies in the box. I didn’t feel they were dominating the goal, we were very much in it but we found ourselves 1-0 down. So the message is we are scoring, we either draw 1-1 or we win. Thankfully once we got the first, the stadium, the momentum… when we scored the place erupted and they were almost sucking the ball in.”
Mowbray had a brief chat with his replacement at Sunderland, Michael Beale, after the game and says he told the head coach to enjoy the journey even in the difficult moments.
“I just wished him all the best, I know the club very well and I know what it must be like at this moment having lost two games this week,” he said.
“They have to stay strong and believe in the quality of the footballers they’ve got, they have to keep going. I want to win every game for Birmingham City but I want Sunderland to do well, I had an amazing 15 months there – it was a brilliant place for me to work. I was just saying to Michael to enjoy it, every job in football is an adventure and you have to enjoy it. I don’t want to get too philosophical but life is a journey, eh, so don’t make it a burden.
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