Tony Mowbray is losing no sleep over his contract at Sunderland as he approaches the final 12 months of his deal. Mowbray joined the Black Cats at the end of August and signed a deal that runs to the end of next season, but an unsubstantiated report this week claimed that the club was considering appointing a new head coach this summer, and linking 34-year-old Italian Francesco Farioli with the role.
But there is no reason for Sunderland to make a change, with Mowbray far exceeding expectations this season as he has led a newly-promoted club with a very young side to within touching distance of the Championship play-offs with two games remaining, and that, along with the brand of attacking football his team plays, has made him a popular figure with supporters. There have been no discussions as yet regarding extending Mowbray's contract but he is relaxed about that.
"Genuinely, it doesn't even cross my mind to be honest," said Mowbray. "I signed a contract with the football club [in August], I knew how long I'd signed for.
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"I don't lose any sleep over it, I just come in to work and get on with it. I stopped worrying about contracts a long time ago.
"I got stung once, a long, long time ago, with a contract - now I never even look at the numbers on what I get, how long I've got. It's not my job, I employ people to do that for me and to talk to the club - or the club won't talk to him and we'll get on and the time will run out, and this time next year with two games to go we'll all know that I won't be staying.
"Or, sometime in between, he will have had a conversation with the club. They [the club] can choose to do that whenever they want. We have that with players all the time - we let players run into the last year of their contracts.
"The club is in charge, they make those calls."
Mowbray left his previous club Blackburn Rovers at the end of last season when his contract expired. The Lancashire side put off negotiations over a new deal until the final few weeks, by which time Mowbray had already made up his mind to leave.
He said: "At Blackburn Rovers they let my contract run down - that's alright, I didn't shout and scream 'what's going on', they just didn't talk. And then, right at the death, in the last week or so they kicked up a big stink and I thought 'woah, woah', I'd already made my mind up.
"As you probably saw, I said I'd go home and be a better dad and a better husband and go on holiday ... that's life. I worked my contract, I didn't break it, I didn't run away or do anything devious behind anybody's back.
"At this club, I have a year left and I will work hard at the job, give 100 percent commitment. I've probably never been as enthusiastic about a group of young players that we feel can push on and just need a little bit of help."
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