Mark Robins says he “felt for” dismissed Sunderland manager Tony Mowbray as he left the club earlier this month.
On Saturday, Coventry City will face Sunderland, with new Black Cats manager Michael Beale taking command for the first time. On Monday, the former Rangers and QPR manager was selected as Mowbray’s replacement.
And Robins believes Beale will join a club that is “playing pretty good football.” Sunderland last played at Bristol City under interim manager Mike Dodds, but they had previously beaten Leeds and West Brom.
“I felt for Tony (Mowbray), because I think he’d done a great job there, but they felt that they wanted to make a change,” Robins said prior to the game on Saturday. “I think that we can sort of have an understanding of how his teams play and how he wants them to play”He’ll be working with a different group of players this week, and how much work he can get into them and change what he wants to change or enhance what he wants to do will be determined by how much work he’s done and how much he feels he needs to change.
“I know he’s talked about his methods and what he wants to do, but he’s also talked about how he doesn’t want to deviate too much from what Tony was doing because he respects Tony and it’s clear that Tony was having some real success with them.”
“They made the playoffs last season, and I’m sure that will be their minimum goal this season.” So, Michael has come in to a side that has been playing very decent football with a lot of talented footballers in their ranks, and they do things a certain way, and I’m sure he will modify some bits and pieces, but you won’t know till tomorrow.
“They’re a fantastic team.” They are an offensive squad. They have some pretty fantastic attacking players and some really good talent, so I think it will be a really good game.”
