Phil Smith's Sunderland column: What a week of dramatic highs and lows taught us about the future

Honestly, don't believe a word of it.

There was some element of truth in it, of course. He was hired with the club still in a significant period of uncertainty and taking their first steps in the Championship with an extraordinarily young group of players - consolidation was his primary brief.

But Mowbray, like those supporters watching on every week, knew this team had a chance even if it remained an outside one. He had looked ahead with relish to a second half of the season, Amad purring and bouncing off Stewart, Simms and maybe even another.

You didn't need to spend long with him after a defeat to feel the disappointment and the frustration. At Coventry where he said the team didn't have the tools to get the job done, after Stoke City where he bemoaned the lack of a Plan B.

That play-off remark, issued a day or so after that humbling setback, struck a chord (or perhaps more an open wound) because it fed directly into the frustration that had built over the course of a four-game winning run, a feeling that Sunderland had a real chance to have a real go and that they decided not to take it.

And that is true, to an extent. Sunderland opted not to add an experienced holding midfielder in the absence of Corry Evans and though they did try to sign additional striking cover after Ross Stewart's injury, it was too late. Mowbray spoke of the club sticking to their process and their long-term plan and not panicking, but in the weeks that followed he also warned repeatedly that against the deep squads backed by parachute payments also pushing for the top six, it would eventually tell.

The wonderful, unexpected win over Norwich City has served as something of a salve but it's a debate that, in all likelihood, will be revisited again before the summer and most definitely then. When exactly is it that Sunderland will be targeting promotion? Will that point mean investing in key areas of the side, particularly up front where a permanent signing has not been made since Stewart.

They are fair questions: 40,000+ crowds aren't turning up at the Stadium of Light accepting consolidation forever.

Mowbray accepts the view of the hierarchy that this is a project to be carried out over time and that unsustainable spending isn't the way to do it.

Sunderland should in time be able to bring the scale of their support to bear in a financial sense but in this first season back, after four years in League One, the gulf in budget to the clubs who have been around the Premier League in the last couple of years is absolutely vast and to try and jump to those structures in a short period of time would unbalance the squad and undo much of the rebuilding work done.

Mowbray will be the first to tell you its not in his nature to stamp his feet, to instinctively battle with 'the suits'. He signed up for the job and his role within it - and you suspect that he wants to be respectful of that when he speaks publicly.

Primarily, though, when he opts not to talk up play-off prospects, he is trying to protect the dressing room from a level of pressure that he doesn't feel is fair and more importantly, productive.

"I think it's easier without expectation to go and get results," Mowbray explained recently.

"I think if you burden these young players... I'd prefer for them to go and play without the burden of, 'we have to get a result today'.

"They all want to win, but I think they perform better when they are relaxed and playing with freedom and when there isn't that tension there. I felt the tension before the Stoke game was way too much, and you could see it in the first ten minutes, we were too uptight and too stressed and so we were struggling to pass to each other.

"They need to relax and enjoy the football match, so for me it's about having that freedom. We're trying to give players experience and game time in the league, and that will make them better.

"It's professional sport and I understand that people who support this club want to see it get promoted, but I'm with these players every day and [I think it's best] to let them play, not give them that burden of 'have to win', because they're young and carefree - we need them to accept the ball in tight areas, play those 1-2s, pass it and run. If you're too worried about losing, you never get out your own half and I think this team is at its best on the front foot, being aggressive and looking forward."

Actions always speak louder than words and that Norwich City game told you that Mowbray has absolutely not given up on the play-offs yet.

Despite a number of calls to overhaul the side and introduce more young players, he stuck broadly to the formula and personnel that he believes is most likely to earn points right now. On the morning of the game he showed his team clips of how they cut through Fulham at Craven Cottage back in January, stressing that they had nothing to fear from these teams at the top.

On Tuesday, he urged them to keep the fans excited for the top six for as long as they possibly can.

If Sunderland do fall short then Mowbray will in all likelihood, just like everyone else, be left with a feeling of 'what if'. Fewer injuries, a better end to the January window... but he also wouldn't want that to take away too much from what the players have managed to achieve in the face of so many major injuries.

What the last week or so has shown is that however these next ten games go, one of Mowbray's biggest challenges moving forward will be to retain that sense of freedom and fun within his team even as expectation understandably and quite rightly begins to rise about what it is they should be aiming for at the end of the season.

It also has very definitely shown the importance of the head coach getting the support he needs as time goes on, both on the pitch and off it. Not in careless spending or an overhaul of the general project, because there is a groundswell of support for building a young, attacking team. But in over time getting the balance and most importantly the depth within the squad.

Part of the reason this season has been such an enjoyable experience is because for the most part, there has been an alignment about where Sunderland are right now and where they are trying to get to.

Maintaining that will require both obvious signs of growth and meaningful dialogue about where those above Mowbray see this team going over the next season or two. And a striker or two, obviously.

For now, though, the final throes of the play-off race. It ain't over 'til its over - and Mowbray hasn't given up just yet.