I’M READY FOR SACK

Jones pledges to bounce back

NATHAN JONES admits he is facing the sack at Stoke – but has vowed to start over again when the axe falls.

Jones knows he is on borrowed time with Stoke bottom of the Championship on just two points and Charlton boss Lee Bowyer being touted as a possible successor.

Defeat to fellow strugglers Huddersfield in tonight’s basement battle at the bet365 Stadium would probably spell the end of Jones’ nine-month reign.

But the Welshman, below, admits he will have no complaints.

“If results don’t improve, I fully expect a decision to be made on my future,” said Jones, who has won just three of his 29 league games.

“I have no argument with that. If I’m honest, if this was not the club it was with the owners it has, I’d have been gone a while ago because my results have not been good enough. I know that. I’m under no illusions.

“We’ve changed a lot here, but we’ve not got results and that’s the be-all and end-all.

“I fully expect that if I don’t get results in the next few games, a decision will be made on my future.” Jones, 46, who guided Luton to promotion to League One last year, was remarkably open about his likely fate and says he will start again should he become the fourth Stoke boss to get the boot since January 2018.

“I don’t want it to happen, but I don’t fear losing my job,” he said. “I know it’s a precarious position. Sooner or later I would imagine it will happen. Not many managers go through their careers without losing their job. “I’ve come to a great club and I’m privileged to have managed here. It’s been tough, it’s been draining, it’s been a massive learning curve for me.

“I’ve come from nothing and I’m prepared to go back and start again. I was a coach before at a League Two side who were 18th in the league and ended up in the Championship. “If I lose this job, which I hope I don’t, I’ll learn from it and just go back to the drawing board and start again.”