It is hard to argue Nathan Jones does not deserve the opportunity to manage in the Premier League. Towards the end of his time at Yeovil, where he spent seven years as a marauding left-back in League One, his Sundays would be spent coaching the women’s team and later, while first-team coach at Brighton, he spent a week shadowing the then England Under-21s manager Gareth Southgate in the buildup to the 2015 European Championship. He took charge at Luton when they were 15th in League Two and last season led them to within two games of the Premier League with a modest squad assembled for less than £1.5m. On Saturday he will go toe-to-toe with Jürgen Klopp at Anfield.
The common denominator when talking to those who have worked under or alongside him is that the new Southampton manager is meticulous. It is commonplace for him to give prospective signings in-depth presentations on the plan, where he sees them slotting in and, critically, the journey on which he thinks they can go. For Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall, whom Jones signed for Luton on loan from Leicester at the beginning of 2020-21, it was an hour of Wyscout clips, Venn diagrams and data in a hotel off the M1. For James Collins, it was the training ground and clips of previous games and goals. “To walk into a meeting with a manager having so much detail on you, it just shows how much he wants to sign you,” Collins says. “He’s really enthusiastic and passionate about what he wants. I signed a few days later.”
It is unlikely to be long before the neutral takes note of Jones, a fiery and animated character on the touchline who sometimes wears plasters on his fingertips to prevent him biting his nails down to his skin amid the nervous energy. Jones sometimes slept overnight at Luton’s training ground. “He’s very intense but that’s what makes him so unique,” says Collins, the Derby striker who spent four years at Luton. “He makes sure you’re all set up and ready to go into the games without leaving any stone unturned. On the pitch he’s kicking every ball with you. He lives and breathes his job.”
Jones, a born-again Christian, has several tattoos, including Michelangelo’s The Creation of Adam across his back. He makes his players believe. Jordan Clark’s heat maps as a winger at Accrington detailed his engine and ability to get up and down the flank in League One. Jones ran Clark through some clips when making his sales pitch, adamant that energy would allow Clark to excel in the middle, and though the player was initially unsure, since he signed on a free transfer in 2020 he has developed into an accomplished Championship central midfielder.
Southampton’s owner, Sport Republic, whose chief executive, Rasmus Ankersen, was a co-director of football at Brentford when they appointed Dean Smith and Thomas Frank, has monitored Jones for a few years and his track record of developing players, from James Justin to Dewsbury-Hall and Jack Stacey, all now in the Premier League, was a key attraction. At Yeovil, where he became assistant manager after finishing playing, he worked with Andros Townsend, Steven Caulker, Ryan Mason and the Southampton goalkeeper, Alex McCarthy.
Pelly Ruddock Mpanzu and Dan Potts remain at Luton from the team promoted out of League Two in 2018. “In his first full season at Luton we reached the playoffs but lost in the semi-finals [to Blackpool, in 2017],” says Joaquín Gómez, Jones’s former first-team coach at Luton and Stoke and now head coach of SJK Seinäjoki in Finland. “We watched the game back the same night, tried to heal and we hurt, but very quickly the day after or two days after we were meeting again to see what things could get better to make sure that we didn’t have to go through it again. There was a belief that we were doing something the right way and that we had to succeed.”
Jones has been joined by his assistants Chris Cohen, with whom he played at Yeovil, and Alan Sheehan, whom he managed in his first season at Luton. “He does not just use his players as a tool but he cares for their own individual development,” says Gómez. “He wants to invest time into his players’ careers. He shows a lot of empathy.”
Jones has had a hugely positive couple of years since returning to Luton towards the end of 2019-20, after his “regret” at leaving for Stoke, where he was sacked after nine months with six wins from 38 games. “We were moving from a club where the environment was all we wanted it to be because we had been there for a long time and at Stoke we tried and couldn’t make it work,” Gómez says. “As has been proven afterwards, it is hard to make it work. It was a learning curve for all of us … I’m sure that the experience that he had is going to help him for this one to make it even more successful. I’m sure that he’s more ready for the Premier League.”
Collins insists Jones is better prepared now “to deal with bigger players and personalities”. Jones, like Eddie Howe, has managed in each division of the Football League. “He’s taken every step, worked every hour, every minute that he had to do,” says Gómez. “He has shown he can manage in the Championship and he has maximised his resources very, very well. I’m sure it will take a bit of time but I hope it works because he fully deserves it. He will be him. He won’t change because he’s in the Premier League. In football you’ve got to be yourself, otherwise you get found out.”
