THERE WON’T BE BITTERNESS, BUT JONES WILL WANT TO PUT ONE OVER POTTERS

STOKE City will reacquaint themselves with former manager Nathan Jones when they resume Championship action this weekend.

It’s roughly a year since Jones’ short time as Potters boss came to an end - and then six months later he popped up at Luton Town.

Will the game mean that little bit more to Jones? Of course it will.

As a manager, when you face an old club you always want to put one over them - especially if you feel you were harshly treated.

In Jones’ case, though, I don’t think he will have any bitterness towards Stoke. In fact, he freely admitted that the way results went he couldn’t have had any complaints if he’d have been sacked sooner.

Stoke certainly gave him plenty of time to get things right, so he can’t grumble on that score.

The club backed him, and the supporters generally stayed with him when they could easily have turned much quicker.

It just didn’t work out for him in these parts and he couldn’t get the players to put things together in the way he would have wanted.

Results didn’t go for him and he was unfortunate in that regard because I don’t think anyone could question he threw himself in to life at the bet365 Stadium.

But he went back in at Luton and miraculously kept them up in the Championship last year - and has built on his good work in the early stages of this campaign.

They seemed odds-on to go down last season, but Jones seems to have a natural fit at

Luton and he picked up where he left off in his first spell.

Luton are doing well this time around as well early on, so Jones, pictured, won’t have any bitterness towards Stoke, he will just be focused on securing another three points for his side.

Luton are probably doing better than anyone reasonably expected, but Stoke should head to Kenilworth Road confident that they can pick up more points on the road.

Michael O’neill’s side have so far drawn at Millwall and won at Preston, as well as winning at Wolves and Villa in the Carabao Cup.

And it’s a good job those four points on the road in the league have been picked up after a disappointing start to home life.

It’s just one point from six at headquarters so far - and not winning your home games puts that little bit more pressure on you to win away from home.

But it doesn’t matter if it’s a trip to Bournemouth, Norwich or Luton, away games at any level are more difficult.

And I don’t buy the fact that there’s no home advantage with fans not being able to attend.

Players are generally more comfortable playing in familiar surroundings, so hopefully Stoke can make life uncomfortable for Luton this weekend.

IF someone can explain to me what on earth is going on with Project Big Picture, then I’d be most grateful.

Cutting the number of teams in the Premier League - which includes five going down in one season - and a cash boost for the EFL are among the proposals put forward by Liverpool and Manchester United.

Will it happen? I just can’t see it myself. Why on earth would Premier League teams vote to increase their chances of losing their share of the big-money pie?

There’s probably only halfa-dozen clubs who would be confident that they will never be relegated from the Premier League.

The rest, well, a bad season and their time in the Premier League could come to an end.

It seems a bizarre proposal to make and the last time I checked, turkeys don’t vote for Christmas.

BACK to simpler matters to understand and Scotland are now just one game away from reaching the delayed Euro 2020 tournament.

They beat Israel on penalties and now need to win in Serbia next month to book their place at a major tournament for the first time since 1998.

There’s a chink of light emerging from Scotland on the international front after winning five of the last seven matches.

They didn’t play great against Israel, but managed to get the job done.

There’s still a lack of top-class talent emerging from Scotland, so that’s even more kudos to manager Steve Clarke for getting the best out of the hand he has been dealt.

Steve has always done well in Scotland and gets the most out of the players he has.

It’s a tough ask to go to Serbia and win - they will be thinking it’s a great tie. But if Scotland qualify, should it be celebrated? Yes, to a degree, but in the 70s and 80s we were reaching major tournaments regularly.

We shouldn’t be waiting almost 25 years to reach the finals of a competition.