During his time as Southampton manager, Nathan Jones managed just five wins in 14 matches, with four of these victories coming in cup competitions, culminating in his sacking with the Saints sitting at the bottom of the Premier League, however, his time at the club was truly bizarre due to the nature of his press conferences.
Here, we take a look at some of Nathan Jones’ most baffling quotes from his time at Southampton.
Jones was appointed as Southampton manager on 10th November, just two days after his final game as Luton Town boss, a 2-0 loss to Stoke City. Life at St Mary’s started quickly, as the 49-year-old would take charge of the Saints’ fixture at Liverpool just two days after landing his new role.
“It’s been a whirlwind. I’ve been up and down the country, my own [Luton] game Tuesday, Southampton game [on Wednesday], meeting everyone, the World Cup and every little thing that could possibly happen. Just praise the Lord my wife is not pregnant as literally that would be the most manic week you could ever imagine.”
After his first game at Southampton, which saw the Saints lose 3-1 to Liverpool at Anfield, Jones made a bold statement, saying that “Every striker I’ve worked with has scored goals at whatever level.”
The 49-year-old further added “When I worked at Brighton I did the same and strikers got moves. The ones I had at Luton have all scored goals and have either gone on to different stuff or are still there scoring goals. I want us to be a real fluent attacking side. I want us to be an aggressive side and I want to score goals and Che is going to be key to that. I know I can make him better”
Since this match, Southampton have managed just five league goals, with Alcaraz scoring at the weekend in their defeat to Wolves, while midfielder James Ward-Prowse has netted four times. Meanwhile, Che Adams hasn’t scored a Premier League goal since Jones’ comments.
Following Southampton’s 3-0 loss to Brentford in the Premier League and ahead of their clash with Wolves, Jones gave us an indication of what life could have looked like for him if he hadn’t have plied his trade in professional football.
"I could have stayed in a mining community, been a PE teacher and had a nice life, married a nice Welsh girl. I don’t. I want to test myself on every level & that’s nothing against Welsh women. I want to test myself” Jones further added, ”I was the fittest human being in history”.
The Saints' 3-0 loss to Brentford at the Gtech Community Stadium was a damaging defeat for Jones, which saw the 49-year-old be questioned on fan reactions to his substitutions and tactics.
Something that didn’t go unnoticed, was the fact that he threw 19-year-old Belgian midfielder Romeo Lavia under the bus with his comments.
“The fans saw a performance today that justified those sayings and that’s fine. All I can say to them as I understand, I totally understand. To be fair, they’ve sung that at any point I’ve made a substitution. Now, if we keep Romeo Lavia on the pitch with a booking, they were a counter-attacking side so we were at risk. Was Romeo Latvia running the football game? Was he was out-battling and dominating everything, so was it justified? If it was, they were watching a different game to me”
Another iconic quote of Jones’ came after the Saints' humiliating 3-0 loss to Brentford, as the Welshman claimed that he had made compromises due to the players not fitting his style of football.
“Statistically, there weren’t many better than me around Europe in terms of aggression, clean sheets, defending your box, balls in the box, expected goals – all those things.”
Perhaps his final game at the helm at St Mary’s summed his time up perfectly, as the Saints were in cruise control against Wolves at half time, leading 1-0 via a fine Carlos Alcaraz strike, while Mario Lemina had been shown a second yellow card, meaning that Jones’ men were firmly in the driving seat.
However, the Saints somehow found a way to lose the match, as Jan Bednarek scored a comical own goal, while Joao Gomes scored his first goal for Wolves. Jones rationalised the situation by saying the following:
“For me, the ten men was to our detriment because it made it a free hit for them and added pressure on us.”
Referring back to the days of his playing career, Jones talked about a time he felt homesick when at Luton Town in 1995 following his move from Welsh club Merthyr Tydfil. As mentioned, he would leave the Hatters to move further afield, joining Spanish side Badajoz for the 1995/96 campaign, before moving to Numancia in 1996 and eventually returning to Britain with Southend United in 1997.
“When I went to Luton as a player I was homesick. The manager left and my next move was to go to Spain. No logic in that as I was homesick in Luton and I decided to go to Spain.”
On New Year’s Eve, Southampton suffered a 2-1 loss away at Fulham, as James Ward-Prowse scored for both sides, while Joao Palhinha bagged an 88th-minute winner for the Cottagers.
Prior to the Saints next match against Nottingham Forest, Jones said “The other day we were excellent, excellent structure performance. But we gifted two goals from set-pieces”
Considering that set pieces are all about having organisation, discipline and structure when defending them, surely this statement is contradictory?
Havant & Waterlooville manager Paul Doswell is known for being a Southampton fan due to being born there and was asked about his thoughts on Jones’ management of the club.
Doswell has been managing since taking over at Sutton United in 2008 accused Jones of not being good enough to manage Southampton and stated that the football was as bad as he’s ever seen. Much to many people’s surprise, Jones heard Doswell’s comments and decided to respond.
“The non-league manager criticised me the other day. It baffled me. I don’t speak about Havant & Waterlooville. I don’t speak about levels I don’t know about. I have ignored everything really and I don’t want it to be a big issue because some of it’s justified, some of it’s not. I took umbrage to one thing really. When you’re in the public eye and when you do a job like managers do, you’re going to get criticism regardless of what you do at every level. I don’t hear it. I was informed about one incident, that’s it. I don’t read social media, I don’t read press much. I block everything out”
