'Going to be tough' - Mowbray assesses 23/24 Championship roster and predicts tough campaign for Sunderland

Tony Mowbray is expecting another tough 2023/24 season in the Championship, with a number of teams looking like promotion contenders.

The upcoming Championship season looks like its most competitive in years. There's a clutch of teams who might fancy their chances of promotion, with very few looking like nailed on relegation candidates.

And speaking to The Northern Echo about the quality of the upcoming Championship roster, Sunderland boss Mowbray had this to say:

“The season is going to be tough this year, with the teams that came down. Leeds United, Southampton and Leicester are big teams. They’re not teams who went up last year and have come down this year and are used to the Championship, but they’re big teams.

“Leeds have been relegated after two full seasons in the division, Southampton have been up there a long time and Leicester won the Premier League in 2015.

“There’s big teams coming down, and then you’ve got Ipswich spending money, a club I know really well who are very ambitious and have a big support. They’ll be a handful as well, and it’ll be a really interesting opening game of the season because they’ll come with all guns firing I’m sure."

Mowbray added:

“If you add into those teams I’ve already mentioned your likes of West Brom, Middlesbrough, Watford and Norwich then the league looks tough on paper. But then it looked tough last year and we did pretty well, so we will be really positive with the way we approach it."

Sunderland are just one of maybe 10 or more teams looking like canddates for the top six, and so achieving the same feat that they did last time round is going to be extremely difficult.

High hopes...

But like Mowbray says, almost nobody expected Sunderland to achieve what they did last year and so the Black Cats should still believe in themselves ahead of next season.

And so far they've not had any major player departures, with several exciting names having joined, and so Sunderland's chances of finishing inside the top six should be even greater.

But with so many good teams in the league it's certainly going to be tough - perhaps tougher than last year.

With Mowbray at the wheel though and more signings looking likely, it looks set to be another fruitful campaign for the Black Cats.

High hopes...

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