NATHAN Jones declared if Saints were “a team full of ageing superstars, I probably wouldn’t be here,” as he pointed to his track record that convinced Sport Republic.
The 49-year-old, who was awarded Championship manager of the year last season after guiding Luton Town to the playoffs, is confident despite the scenario.
It might be Jones’s first job in the Premier League but he was defiant in stating “I know I can” when asked if he can improve four-goal Che Adams’s output.
Sport Republic, and Rasmus Ankersen, are admirers of Jones for their own reasons – and he has the belief in him to prove them right.
“It’s why I’m here. If it was a team of ageing superstars then I probably wouldn’t be here,” Jones told the Daily Echo, when asked if he is excited by it being a young playing group.
“But the fact it’s young hungry players who want to get better, my track record lends itself to that, so I’m really excited.
“When you see these players, athletes, blank canvasses you have to work with; it’s very exciting. But amongst that, you then have to get results and these have to learn quickly.”
He added: “They’re young players and the Premier League can be very unforgiving. So we have to learn quickly while developing young talent.
“That’s it; winning games while developing talent, that’s basically what we have to do.”
In order for Jones to achieve those ambitions, he will have to win over the players immediately during the next four or five weeks of mid-season training.
“You’re asking people to buy into something and you have to make them believe that. Now if you just dictate to them, that’s not my management style,” he said.
“What I want to do is get them to buy into something and see the reasoning behind that, and then with my passion for what I do, with my work rate, they can see I believe in something.
“If I believe in a way of doing it and I can transfer that onto the pitch and I can get them to buy into that and see that I have an empathetic side when maybe they don’t play as well, then that will give them a real impetus moving forward.”
Jones continued: “I manage like I want to be managed. I craved a manager to care about me, I craved someone to want to make me better, I craved someone to say ‘you can be this player if you really want to, if you buy in.’ And then guiding me to be that.
“Then put me in a team framework that suited how I played, I craved that as a player. I never had it - which is ironic because I played for 23 years - but I never had it. But I want to be that manager, that coach, that basically changes their life.”
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