Nathan Jones recently spoke to The Athletic (very good value in my view) and here are a few excerpts from the interview.
'he south-east Londoners, a top-flight club as recently as
2007 but who were flirting with relegation to the fourth tier of English
football when he took charge, have pulled away from danger and there is a real
sense of optimism as thoughts turn to next season.
“We want to get the club back to where it’s been in previous
seasons,” Jones tells The Athletic. “We believe there’s an
infrastructure here that’s wonderful, a fanbase that’s wonderful, a history of
being in the Premier League and with good planning, with real good decisions,
with a lot of God’s will, that’s where we’d like to return to.”
Jones is keen to have “99 per cent” of his squad for next
season in place by late June, to allow time for a thorough pre-season with the
right personnel already assembled. “That’s the type of things we want to create
here,” he said, “not going into pre-season where we’re six short and we’re
signing people in August.”
For Jones, a born-again Christian, his faith has been
important in guiding him through testing moments. He has religious tattoos —
including a version of Michelangelo’s painting The Creation Of Adam across his
back.
“It gives me a set of values that I stick by,” he says. “I
never get too high or too low, everything I believe is God’s will. So if God
takes me to a tough, tough period, then I know he’s going to bring me through
it to something different or he’s going to teach me."
“I speak to (Newcastle head coach) Eddie Howe and
Brendan Rodgers (manager of Scottish champions Celtic) on a regular basis.”'
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