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.
