West Bromwich Albion have confirmed that Tony Mowbray has returned to the club as the new head coach. Albion have been looking for a successor to Carlos Corberan since Christmas Eve, after the Spaniard returned home to manage boyhood club Valencia, and the club’s headhunting search has led them back to a man who knows the Baggies all too well.

Mowbray, who was last at Birmingham City before stepping down last February after being diagnosed with bowel cancer, has recently received the medical all-clear to resume his managerial career and he has returned to The Hawthorns almost 16 years after he departed for Celtic.

Mowbray has signed a two-and-a-half-year contract with the club, who sit just outside of the Championship play-off places ahead of the welcoming of Stoke City on Saturday. Mowbray will take up the reins ahead of a poignant meeting with former club Middlesbrough on Tuesday night. He brings faithful assistant Mark Venus, who was also with him in his previous Albion stint, with him.

 

Chairman Shilen Patel said: “Tony’s return is driven by the excellent head coach he is now and while I know he is proud of his previous time with the Albion, his desire to achieve new success shone through from our first meeting.

 

“Tony has a wealth of experience across British football and shares our vision for the football club. He truly cares about bringing the best out of players and instils determination and commitment in his teams. I am thrilled he is our new head coach, and we are excited to welcome him back to write a new chapter in his Baggies story with his unwavering desire to compete and win.”

 

“He’s just a good football man,” Chris Brunt, interim boss and the former winger who Mowbray signed, said. “He knows everything there is to know about football. He just enjoys it, he enjoys seeing his team playing attacking football and scoring goals. One thing I’ve noticed since he left, with Coventry, Blackburn and Sunderland, he was more pragmatic. He knew his teams couldn’t all play the same football we did in 2008 and he adapted