Coventry City manager Tony Mowbray outlines his vision

Sky Sports reporter Rob Dorsett talks to Tony Mowbray about ending a sabbatical to take the Coventry City job and how he hopes to get the Sky Blues back to where they belong...

Tony Mowbray has three boys under the age of 10, and, for the whole of their upbringing, he admits he’s been an absent father. Work dominated. Such is the life of a football manager.

Then, 17 months ago, he was sacked by Middlesbrough and for the first time in his career, Mowbray had some time for the family.

“I guess I took a sabbatical,” says the new Coventry City boss. “I needed a break. I hadn’t had one for a decade, and the family suffered. So, my wife and I decided I’d take some time to get to know my kids. We went on a few holidays, I went on the school run, kicked a ball about with them in the garden, and it was great.

“But then after Christmas, I started getting itchy feet. I wanted to get back in the game that I love.”

There were “other offers” before the Sky Blues came calling. But nothing that lured him out of his extended family break. So why was the man who got West Bromwich Albion promoted to the Premier League, and who Celtic head-hunted, paying over £2m in compensation for, tempted by a team battling relegation in League One?

Mowbray said: “I see the way English football is going. It’s not easy these days for managers to get back into work once they’ve lost their job. Not that I’ve been looking for a year or so.

"With so many foreign owners of football clubs in the top two divisions in England, it’s particularly hard; managers seem to be just numbers these days – they get a few weeks, then they’re out. There are a lot of good coaches out there who can’t get work.

“I see Coventry as a big football club – something of a sleeping giant. Their first game back in the area, against Gillingham, they had 27,500 fans there. We just have to light the blue touch paper if we can.

"If you ask people in football, they’d say Coventry’s natural place in the football pyramid is somewhere between the Championship and the Premier League. As quickly as we can, we need to get to that goal.”

After a season-and-a-half out of the game, Mowbray has agreed only a three-month contract with Coventry. He says it suits both parties.

“This deal gives me a chance to have a look at the club, see how it’s structured, and it gives them chance to have a look at me and see if I suit their plans. Best case scenario, of course, is we do well, we stay in this league or better, we feel we can move it on, improve ourselves in the summer, and strengthen the squad and be competitive in this league.”

He knows it’s a big challenge to achieve that. Mowbray watched from the stands on Tuesday night as his new squad lost 1-0 at Barnsley. Coventry have won just once in their last nine matches and sit 20th in League One, a point above the relegation places.

“We have to get the team confident, focused, and win some matches. We need to get the people who support this club excited again – get that latent support back; get people with Coventry scarves in their cupboard to put them on again, and come and support us.”

"I see Coventry as a big football club - something of a sleeping giant. We just have to light the blue touch paper if we can."

Wherever Mowbray has gone, since 2004 when he started his managerial career at Hibernian, he’s had the same footballing philosophy: get the ball down, pass it quickly to feet, and attack. It’ll be the same style with the Sky Blues.

“We can’t do that overnight though. It’s a very intense period of Saturday-Tuesday-Saturday football we have coming up. We don’t have many training days to try to get that across. It’ll be easier in the summer. But yes – my ethics haven’t changed. That’s what I want: technical players to play, get the ball down and entertain the crowds.

“At West Brom, we scored over 100 goals in consecutive seasons. If you look at any league, the teams that tend to win titles are those who have the ball, who play attacking football; whether that’s Manchester City, or Real Madrid. Or even at the top end of this league – Bristol City and Swindon are playing 3-5-2, with wingers – attacking football.”

Though Mowbray accepts he may have to compromise his principles at first to rebuild Coventry’s League One security, what about rebuilding his own reputation after his CV was tarnished by being sacked by Celtic and Middlesbrough?

“Some people might think that. But I’m proud of what we achieved. At West Brom we won their first title in 88 years, scoring a hatful of goals, and put an infrastructure in at the club that’s still being successful now – it was almost normal at West Brom to get relegated then promoted the following season.

“Sometimes people forget, I didn’t lose my job at West Brom – I got head hunted by Celtic, who wanted a rebuilding job. It was tough there. People lost patience with what we were trying to do, I accept that. But we were second in the league and in the semi-final of the Scottish Cup when I left. I’ll never regret my time there.

“As for Middlesbrough – it’s a labour of love for me. It’s where I’m from. I supported them as a boy from the age of six, played for the club when I left school, loved my time there. They were second-bottom in the league when I arrived, and people will have their own ideas about whether we did a good job or a bad job. But I can tell them – we left them in a much better situation than when we took over.

“And they’ve gone from strength to strength – I only have good thoughts for them, and I hope they make the Premier League this time round. They deserve to. And it’d be nice to think I had some part to play in turning the club around and helping them get there.”

From a reporter’s perspective, Mowbray isn’t your typical manager. If you show an interest and an understanding of his footballing ethos, he will happily talk for hours about styles of play, improving players, tactical issues and the like.

It’s refreshing to see close up, a coach with a passion and determination to play football, as he calls it, “the right way”. Someone determined to make players better technically, to give creative players the freedom to express themselves, freedom to fail.

With Coventry’s current plight, though, Mowbray knows he can’t afford to fail. He doesn’t have the freedom to go gung-ho. He admits it’s unthinkable to imagine Coventry in League Two.

If he can keep them in the division, he’ll sign a new contract. And he’s promising attractive, attacking football from next season: Football in-keeping with “the old Coventry”. And, he hopes, some of the club’s old-fashioned success too.