LIVING on Teesside, Tony Mowbray is always well tuned into the views of Middlesbrough fans and he sought to play down any concerns about his hometown team's form early in the season.

Despite reaching the play-offs last season, Boro - on the back of losing some key men in the summer - endured a tough start to the current campaign and failed to win any of their first seven games.

But Mowbray knew today's visitors to the Stadium of Light would soon pick up.

"The data was telling us they're a decent team and now they're turning the data into results, I never had any fears for them" said Sunderland's head coach.

As a boyhood Boro fan and former captain and manager, Mowbray will always wish well of his hometown club - providing it's not at Sunderland's expense.

Should Sunderland win today - as they did when the sides met at the Stadium of Light last season - he won't be rubbing it in the faces of his family and friends. That's quite simply not Mowbray's manner. If the result goes the other way, however, he knows what's coming his way.

"If we get beat I know for a few weeks everyone I bump into will have been at the match, and yet if we win nobody says anything for a couple of weeks," smiled the 59-year-old, who insisted today's game won't have been the main topic of conversation over dinner in the Mowbray household last night.

"My son was only interested in the tickets and making sure he's coming. My wife, I don't want my loved ones coming to football matches, I don't want them in this environment. But they do want to come to this one.

"I'm pretty sure the football match won't get mentioned (on Friday night). If we win, I won't be rubbing it in my son's face, if they win, he probably will rub it in my face, but we'll see."

"I grew up from the age of six going to watch the Boro play, then I played for them and captained them and managed them. It would be wrong for me to say it doesn't matter, it's just another team. I watch for their result and want them to do really well, but obviously not against us and I want us to finish above them in the league and get more points."

Mowbray obviously hasn't come up against Boro yet this season but he has faced a team that he deems to be extremely alike.

"Ipswich and Middlesbrough both play very, very similar football," he said.

"Look at the two coaches, they're both from Manchester United, they both push their left full-back on, roll their left winger inside to create two 10s, play out with a back three, they're very similar.

“Middlesbrough seem to have taken a bit of time to gel with the new players but they play the same system and I think he’s just been trying to acclimatise his new players, because he lost a lot of quality in the summer, some loans went back to their parent clubs. Akpom was obviously sold to Holland.

“Michael's probably just been getting the players into the system and it looks by the results that it’s starting to come together for them. It's going to be a tough test.

“They obviously had a tough start but have turned it around, won their last four games. From what I’m watching they are a very well coached team, have good rotations, good identity, we know how they play.

“We have to try and be aware of their strengths and weaknesses and see how the game goes but they have some good players."

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Mowbray has experienced Wear-Tees derbies in the stands, on the pitch and in both dugouts.

He says: “I have been here a year or so now and we’ve played them twice. It’s a big game for me, I live on Teesside of course and everybody I bump into wants to talk football.

“I obviously played in lots of them. I think if you ask Sunderland supporters there is only one big derby for them in my mind.

“Middlesbrough would consider both Sunderland and Newcastle as big derby games, maybe even Leeds is a huge game, similar sort of distances and yet not like a Tyne-Wear derby.

"Derbies are great when you win, not very good when you lose. They're passionate, emotional. Last year was good at home. It's only bragging rights really but I'm not interested in that.

“We should just look forward to it, there are three points at stake and I don’t want to build it up to anything other than two decent teams in good form trying to win a football match really.

“We are in decent form and they are in good form having won their last four. Let’s bring it on."