After 94 miserable days on the South Coast, the Saints board finally admitted their horrible mistake and called time on the failure that will be remembered as Nathan Jones’s tenure at Southampton Football Club.
94 days. Eight Premier League matches. One memorable win at Goodison Park. Seven destructive and damaging defeats.
Ultimately, Sport Republic were left with no choice and despite the decision coming just over three months after they appointed him, it still seemed to drag on as long as possible before the news was confirmed.
READ MORE: The funny, concerning and bizarre Jones quotes that defined his own Saints era
The final straw came on Saturday afternoon at St Mary’s as Jones’s Saints contrived to throw away the ultimate position of power - up a goal and a man - to suffer a gut-wrenching and quite possibly decisive 2-1 defeat to relegation rivals Wolves.
Jones will feel that everything went against him in his short period in charge of Saints and with the Wolves disappointment fresh in his mind, that viewpoint will seem warranted.
But Jones isn’t gone because of bad luck or misfortune. He’s gone because in three months he oversaw a team that went backward, deserved the little they got, and ultimately, drove themselves to the brink of the Championship.
That isn’t to say this is solely Jones’s fault. He’s the front man so he naturally has to take the brunt of the criticism that will continue to be aimed his and Saints’ way, but this is the product of a collective failure from top to bottom.
The power brokers who chose him are to blame. The players who once again at the weekend failed to deliver in the most crucial of moments are to blame. And of course, the constantly defensive and frequently abrasive Jones is to blame.
With 15 points after 22 games, Saints are rock-bottom of the Premier League table and sinking fast toward a first top-flight relegation since 2005. Such a slide doesn’t occur because of one person. But it’s impossible to escape the fact that everything about the Nathan Jones era has left Saints precariously on the precipice.
When Ralph Hasenhuttl departed the club a week before the World Cup break, it seemed the perfect time - and the necessary time - for a fresh start. After nearly four years in charge, things had gone stale under the Austrian. He appeared to have lost his identity as a manager and it culminated in four wins in his final 26 league matches.
Mired in the relegation zone but with an opportunity for a renewed beginning thanks to the mid-season hiatus, Sport Republic pulled the trigger and within days announced their chosen replacement: a plucky lower-league manager handed his first taste of the footballing elite.
Welcome, Nathan Jones.
After giving the players a fortnight off to relax and recuperate, Saints and their new boss travelled to Spain for a training camp before heading back to the UK to prepare for their return to action against Lincoln City in the League Cup.
They ended up scraping past the League One side but it was far from convincing and it raised the obvious question: where was the progress enabled by five weeks on the training pitch with the new manager?
Perhaps it was unfair to expect Saints to come flying out of the blocks following their second ‘pre-season’ but that was seemingly the entire point around the timing of Hasenhuttl’s dismissal and Jones’s hiring.
When asked by the Daily Echo about the lack of progress over the break, Jones said: “We’ve had to implement a few things over the break. We’ve had people away, we’ve had people injured, so we’ve probably had six or seven who haven’t trained who probably would be starters.
“With the greatest respect, there’s only so much you can do with those out. So I want us to have a clear identity, I want us to have a clear way of playing, I want us to be better in terms of things we do and I would have expected us to be better today.”
Saints have been stuck in a rut now for a full calendar year. A culture of excuses and passing the blame has developed. When Hasenhuttl exited, Saints desperately needed someone who could come in and change that losing mentality.
Instead, Jones just fed into it - at least publicly - with the above quotes one of many examples where he refused to accept that their problems weren’t purely circumstance-based.
Jones might have been the perfect person for the job when analysing the cold numbers from his two spells at Luton. But he was the wrong character for the job and that meant he was doomed from day one.
Add to that the relatively underwhelming nature of the appointment in the first place and the manager was left needing immediate results. They didn’t arrive.
His first league game after the break saw Saints swept aside by Brighton & Hove Albion before they suffered late defeat to Fulham. Things were quickly spiraling out of control and calls for Jones to depart were deafening when Nottingham Forest rocked up to St Mary’s for the first game of 2023 and left with all three points.
Following the defeat came a typically frustrating press conference from Jones where responsibility was seemingly cast aside in favour of excuses - valid or not.
“Against Fulham on Saturday we absolutely nullified them. Tonight they didn’t have any big chances apart from the goal they scored.
"There are improvements in terms of our defensive record and we need to continue that and then it's a slow process to build. We need a result to change momentum and that will happen over games. I understand the frustrations, I really, really do.”
Jones wasn’t wrong in his assessment of the Forest defeat. Steve Cooper’s side managed just one shot on target - Taiwo Awoniyi’s gifted winner - but that description of proceedings ignored crucial facts. Saints themselves came up with zero shots on target and never looked like breaching Dean Henderson’s goal.
A statement seven days then saw Jones earn his first league win at Everton following cup victories against Crystal Palace and Manchester City. It appeared a corner might have started to turn until a dismal 1-0 defeat to Aston Villa.
An all too predictable League Cup semi-final elimination at the hands of Newcastle sapped much of Jones’s remaining goodwill before the dismal 3-0 thumping at Brentford led to a near-complete consensus from Saints supporters. That was certainly not helped by his post-match comments.
“I've compromised in terms of certain principles because of, one, personnel but, two, the way that people want to play and I've compromised because of fans and so on, compromised on a few little things but no more," he said.
“I've been very successful playing a real fluid style. I tried to implement that at Stoke City and It didn't work because of certain things, then I came back to Luton, we were a really aggressive, front-footed side. Statistically, there weren't any better than me around Europe in terms of aggression, clean sheets, defending your box, balls in the box, expected goals - all those things. We were pound for pound the best because we were spending next to nothing and producing so much and I've gone away from that.
“Maybe it's the Premier League because of how things look, because of certain players and internationals and stuff like that, but I’ve compromised certain things and I won’t do it again.”
Again, all Saints fans wanted in the moment was someone to step forward and accept responsibility for a dismal afternoon in the capital. Instead, they got whatever the above was.
Given a stay of execution, Jones lasted just one more week before the collapse against Wolves saw the only possible outcome occur.
It was a day that said a lot about why Jones has already been pushed out the door. But it also said a lot about why Saints are in the position they find themselves in. With chances to extend their lead, Saints failed to do that. And needing to stand strong and hold out when Wolves grew into the latter part of the match, Saints also failed to do that.
Charly Alcaraz’s first-half goal was only the sixth in the league under Jones and only the second from open play. The late concession meant that Jones ends his brief Premier League career with zero clean sheets.
It’s perhaps the latter of these statistics that truly gave Jones no chance. Speaking at the recent Saints fans’ forum, Sport Republic CEO Rasmus Ankersen explained that Jones was recruited at least in part to help solve the team’s defensive woes.
At times, they really did look more solid under the former Luton boss than they did under Hasenhuttl. But they never managed to get the results to match any potential improvement and the Premier League is far too harsh for incremental advancements. Coupled with their inability to score, Saints got what they deserved across Jones’s eight matches: almost nothing.
Looking at expected goals (xG), a statistic used to measure how many goals a team should score based on the quality of the chances they create, tells the same story. Out of eight games, Saints lost six of them on xG compared to seven out of 14 under Hasenhuttl.
Consistently, Jones’s Saints just weren’t good enough. He’s gone not because of bad luck. But because his team couldn’t step up for him and he couldn’t get them to step up for him.
Time and time again, his players missed big chances to score crucial goals. Time and time again, they failed to hold firm when games were tight. The defeat to Wolves marked the ninth time that Saints have lost by a solitary goal in the Premier League this season, four of those tight losses coming under Jones.
Only five times this season have Saints scored the first goal of the game and Wolves became the fourth time they failed to win after doing so. With every additional statistic, it becomes more and more clear.
Regardless of manager, this team has failed in the necessary requirements for a relegation battle. They’ve lacked the guts, belief, and resilience to get over the line when necessary and the erosion of any and all mental fortitude will likely cost them a place in the Premier League.
But naturally, this brings us back to Jones and the decision to make him manager of Southampton Football Club. A team clearly lacking in confidence and belief needed a leader who could come in and make their presence felt. Instead, they got Jones, someone who seemed desperate to prove himself with his words from day one when all it was ever going to take was results on the pitch.
Jones is a builder, someone who wants to initiate and carry out long-term change. With a big but underperforming squad, Saints needed a fire-fighter and Sport Republic tried to appoint for the distant future rather than the weeks approaching.
Of course, Jones didn’t help himself with a flurry of bizarre decisions that are nearly impossible to explain.
The constant flip-flopping between formations and personnel gave the impression of a lost leader. The isolation of Duje Caleta-Car and Mislav Orsic gave the impression of a leader who was unsure of who and how to lead his group. And the ranting post-match comments gave the impression of a leader who had lost control of himself.
A disaster from start to finish, the Nathan Jones era at Southampton Football Club is over. Left in its wake are questions and concerns. Questions over the decision-making of those in charge and concerns over the squad’s ability to battle through tough moments.
While Jones and his players deserve huge criticism, those at the top, the board, must take their fair share as well. They made a seismic mistake and now Saints are paying the price.
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