Horror show on Jones farewell
NATHAN JONES confirmed he will hold talks with Southampton today as he moved a step closer to becoming their new manager.
The Welshman is expected to be rubber-stamped as Ralph Hasenhuttl’s replacement in the next 48 hours after the clubs agreed compensation, with the 49-year-old facing a baptism of fire at Liverpool on Saturday.
Jones said: ‘I’m flattered to be linked with Southampton so we will see what the next few days bring. But it will take something special to take me away from this. It’s a wonderful, wonderful club.’ Despite helping to lead Luton from League Two to the verge of the Premier League in two successful spells at the club, Jones was unable to say farewell with a win. He was no stranger to defeat during an unhappy 10-month spell at Stoke in 2019 so it was fitting he should end his Luton reign with another poor result there. Stoke sealed victory with two goals in the first 13 minutes. Both came from Morgan Fox crosses, Nick Powell burying the first after three minutes with a diving header before Tom Lockyer inadvertently guided another telling centre into his own net. Stoke boss Alex Neil said: ‘The result was more important than the display.’
AMID three- hour lectures on football coaching theory, Nathan Jones would annoy class-mates with his geeky tendencies, hand up, begging to ask questions like an eager child.
‘I used to think, “Jesus Christ, Nathan, we’ve been in here for hours”,’ says Reading manager Paul Ince, who did his coaching licences with Jones.
As the Welshman led Championship club Luton for the final time last night before his move to Southampton, that episode springs to mind as one which sums up Jones: a student of the game who has worked himself up from the pits of English football.
His story starts in the pits — literally. Jones was born in Blaenrhondda, at the tip of the Rhondda Valley, and plied his trade for clubs such as Maesteg Park, Ton Pentre and Merthyr Tydfil after being released by Cardiff aged 18.
Jones was signed by David Pleat at Luton for £10,000, aged 22, but never made a senior appearance. It was at this juncture he considered giving up the game, but instead took the unorthodox step of gaining experience abroad. ‘I was homesick at Luton, so I went to Spain,’ he said with a laugh last season.
He joined lower- league outfit Badajoz, then Numancia, where he realised his ambition of becoming a coach, having studied their boss Antonio Gomez, who planned sessions with army-like precision.
‘The life experience was tremendous and it taught me a lot,’ he said. ‘Particularly the style of Spanish football and a different way of training and preparing for matches.’
His WhatsApp status reads trabajando, Spanish for ‘working’, and he is fluent in the language. The Welshman has several tattoos, such as Michelangelo’s Creation of Adam draped across his back. He openly discusses his Christian faith and his favourite passage is Psalm 46:10, ‘Be still and know that I am God.’
After returning to England and playing for Southend and Brighton, he mixed playing at Yeovil with coaching their women’s side. Jones also coached the men at Huish Park. He took a job under Oscar Garcia at Brighton in 2013 after a stint coaching Charlton’s Under 21s, before he left for League Two Luton in 2016.
‘You buy into the manager because he is an infectious character,’ said Harry Cornick, the Luton striker. ‘What he says, you believe. When you see how much he believes in himself, you believe in him.’
Jones stamped his authority by releasing 12 players at the end of his first season and signing eight. Luton lost in the play-offs but won promotion to League One the year after.
But then came the move to Stoke. He won just six of 38 games at a club full of Premier League-level talent. ‘You never fail,’ insisted the compulsive nail-biter. ‘You just learn. It wasn’t a successful time, but I learned what it takes at a big club, the things I’d do differently.’
After returning to Luton and guiding them to the play- offs, Jones’s chance at a big club comes again.
‘What you strive for is to have a group of players who have those qualities I noticed in the Yeovil women’s team: receptive, responsive and committed,’ he said last year. ‘If you have that, it doesn’t matter where or what level you are at.’