Nathan Jones was last night tipped for a dramatic return as Luton manager 16 months after leaving the club under a cloud to join Stoke City.
Reports in The Telegraph and The Daily Mail suggested the Welshman was in advanced talks with the Hatters, who last month parted ways with his successor Graeme Jones to ease the financial burden of the Coronavirus crisis.
Nathan Jones has been out of work since he was sacked by Stoke in November 2019 after winning just eight points from Stoke’s first 14 games, which left them fighting a relegation battle along with Luton, having had promotion aspirations before the campaign.
Town players returned to training on Monday after two months away, due to social distancing rules and they’re gearing up to complete the final nine games of the Championship campaign, with Luton second from bottom and six points adrift.
Jones, who guided Luton to promotion from League Two in 2018 after three successful years at Kenilworth Road appeared to burn his bridges in the way he left for the Potters.
Fans were furious when, soon after joining the Potters, he accepted the manager of the month award he’d won as Luton boss but was pictured holding the trophy in a Stoke City training top.
Speaking to the EFL podcast last year, Jones said: “If I’m honest, I didn’t leave Luton on the best of terms, which saddens me – and pretty much most of that is my fault.
“Everything happened with Stoke so quickly, it was done, it was a whirlwind and I was naïve in terms of leaving.
“When I left Brighton for Luton, for example, I had a golden handshake going out of there, I left with everyone’s blessing and did everything the right way, no problems. I spoke to the manager and took his advice, it was as smooth an exit as you could like.
“When I went to Luton it all happened so quickly and it’s one thing I regret. I regret that I didn’t have chance to go back and speak to the board, that I didn’t go back to speak to players and staff and the people around the club, I regret that I wasn’t able to explain the reasons why I took the job at Stoke.
“That’s a bit thing that saddens me really because it tarnished a lot of good work.”
Asked about whether he had any regrets about his club switch, Jones said: “Absolutely not, you can’t have regrets in terms of that.
“I regret how it was done because I could have handled it better but that’s my only regret.
“Yes, in hindsight you could have and people will say, ‘If you’d stayed you could’ve got them promoted’ but life don’t work like that. Life doesn’t work like that.
“At the time Stoke had just come down from the Premier League and had the biggest budget in the Championship. They were a wonderful club, I met the owners – who are phenomenal owners. I spoke to people about the owners, who are as good as owners you could have in league football.
“Everything was in place really and all we had to do was go in and recreate the work we did at Luton and we’d be a Premier League club. It didn’t prove that way.”
