Ex-Sunderland favourite Julio Arca reveals the advice Tony Mowbray told him

Julio Arca exchanged messages with Sunderland boss Tony Mowbray after being appointed South Shields’ new manager and says the Black Cats head coach is an excellent person to learn from.

Arca spent six years at Sunderland as a player between 2000 and 2006 and was managed by Mowbray during his subsequent spell at Middlesbrough.

The Argentine is now preparing for his first season in management as South Shields make the step up to National League North, following the club’s promotion under Kevin Phillips last term.

“I exchanged a few texts with Tony,” Arca told the Echo when asked if he’d been in touch with Mowbray.

“I spent some time between March and May with Sunderland helping Jewison Bennette learn the language and all that so I spent some time there.

“I know what Tony is like, I know the people working alongside him, good people who have done a fantastic job.

“If there is anyone you can learn from it’s definitely Tony, especially the way they’ve been playing.”

Asked what advice he’s received from Mowbray, Arca replied: “The main thing is just be yourself, do what you think is best for the team, try to play the way you want to play.

“Every process takes time so it might take some time to play the way we want to play but we will try. I think the players are prepared to try different things as well.”

Arca will come up against his former club when South Shields face Sunderland in a pre-season friendly at the 1st Cloud Arena on Saturday (12:30pm kick-off).

Sunderland also have a friendly against Gateshead later in the day and will split their squad to have a combination of senior and academy players at both matches.

“They have got a split squad. We are more or less going to do the same because it’s our second game of pre-season,” Arca explained. “We are looking to play everyone. We might split the team for 45 minutes to give everyone time to play.

“It’s exciting for the club to have such a big club like Sunderland here, biggest gate ever apparently. There are going to be a lot of people, over 3,000 people, so we are looking forward to that.”