Sunderland have no need to fear a trip to The Hawthorns, insists Tony Mowbray. The Black Cats take on Mowbray's old club West Bromwich Albion in the Midlands this lunchtime in a game that pits two of the teams battling it out for a place in the play-offs against one another.
Sunderland are in their first season back in the Championship after a four-year stay in League One, while the Baggies are bidding to return to the Premier League at the second attempt after being relegated the season before last. But while West Brom have the benefit of parachute payments to bankroll their play-off challenge, they go into today's game just a single point better off than Sunderland - albeit, they also have a game in hand.
And Mowbray believes his Sunderland side can compete with virtually anyone in the division, having won at another play-off contender Norwich City and held league leaders Burnley to a draw at Turf Moor in recent weeks. "We've been to some pretty big clubs and got results - and yet, when I say big, there's no club bigger than Sunderland in this league, other than the fact that some have got parachute payments and the quality of their playing staff," said Mowbray, who led West Brom to promotion to the top flight in his two-and-a-half year spell in charge there in the late 2000s.
READ MORE: Tony Mowbray puts forward possible explanation for Sunderland's injury-hit campaign
"We went to Burnley and gave a good account of ourselves, we went to Norwich and gave a good account of ourselves, and we won at Cardiff - alright, they are at the bottom end of the table - but we have done well away from home recently and we shouldn't fear going to The Hawthorns, we should go there and bring our best game. If we do that, we'll give them more than a good game.
"We go there in a really positive mindset knowing that we're going there to attack and be positive and to try to get the result that will keep our season ticking along."
West Brom came from behind to win at the Stadium of Light in December, when Baggies boss Carlos Corberan was still relatively new to the role having succeeded former Sunderland and Newcastle United manager Steve Bruce in late October. He took over with West Brom next-to-bottom of the table, but has since turned them into play-off challengers.
Mowbray said: "They are a very high-quality team, and they have a coach who took Huddersfield Town to the play-offs last year so he is obviously very tuned in and knows what he wants. It's been a strange sort of season since he came in, they were in a really difficult position and then they started like a house on fire, then hit a sticky spell where they went quite a few games without winning but they seem to be over that now.
"They are a really good team. I watched some of the home game against them back - we played really well for an hour but then they showed how talented they are and put us under real pressure late on and got themselves a winner.
"They have some very talented individuals, they took some of the best free transfers the league offered last year, players like [John] Swift and [Jed] Wallace. They are a really dangerous team. I used to manage West Bromwich Albion and I know the emotion and the passion of the place when it is going well.
"I just saw that the fans are postponing their campaign against the ownership in support of the team trying to push for the play-offs. I think it will be a really good game, I'm sure we will take an enormous number of people along to support us and I know that when that stadium is near full it is an amazing place to play football."
READ NEXT
- Sunderland boss Tony Mowbray has set out Niall Huggins' path back to first team involvement
- Tony Mowbray reluctant to throw rookie defender Joe Anderson in at deep end despite injury crisis
- Sunderland make contingency plans for Luke O'Nien ahead of West Brom trip
- Sunderland facing another injury concern ahead of West Brom trip, but Edouard Michut set to return
- Sunderland suffer big injury blow as defender is ruled out for the rest of the season
