Ex-Stockport, So’ton, Wolves, Cardiff, Sheff Wed, Hartlepool boss Dave Jones is said to be eyeing return to football.
The 68 year old is indeed interested in returning to football management or possibly taking on a role like director of football, he reveals in an interview with Wales Online.
He has expressed a desire to return to Cardiff City, aiming to fulfil his dream of promoting the club to the Premier League.
His last managerial position was at Hartlepool United, where he left in 2017 following a challenging tenure.
Since then, he has engaged in consultancy roles and has now voiced interest in re-establishing his connection with football, particularly with Cardiff City, where he believes he can contribute to the club’s identity and ambitions.
EXCLUSIVE: Dave Jones wants to make stunning Cardiff City return and fulfil Premier League dream https://t.co/NZO4cvzf4p pic.twitter.com/4gMTstrh9I
— Cardiff City Online (@CardiffCityLive) November 13, 2024
“Part and parcel of it, when I was there, was that it was all about the culture and identity of the club,” Jones said to WalesOnline this week.
“People who run businesses feel that running a football club is the same, but it’s totally different. The football world is a crazy world.
“You are relying on individuals to pull together to be a team and you need a club philosophy to do that. But they’ve had a lot of managers over the last few years and they keep bringing in their own philosophies, which means that identity gets lost.
“I’d love to go back. I felt hard done by when I left, considering what I’d done for the club. I didn’t finish it off. But I’m sure there are lots of reasons, like whenever we got somewhere we had to sell, but that was my remit.
“But the club then had a DNA and went on to do reasonably well. And now the last four or five years it’s not worked out for anyone who has come in. But if you keep chopping and changing managers, or you’ve not got football people coming in, then that can happen. I don’t know, because you’d have to be in it to see it, live it, breathe it and find out where the problems are.
“A lot of people who work in football clubs, their hearts are in the right place, but they haven’t got that mentality within the football environment to push it on. It’s quite a dog eat dog environment and you have to be ruthless in what you do. But the biggest thing you have to do in any club is find its DNA, what the club is about.”
“My head is full of knowledge, bursting with knowledge. I’ve done other things at other clubs, helped young coaches. I’ve not picked the team or told them how to go about certain things, but I’ve been more of a soundboard for them.
“We’ve all been there and it becomes a lonely job when you’re not doing well, but that’s what a sporting director or technical director’s job is – to support the manager or head coach in what he wants.
“The best way to look at it is, the manager is short-term, the sporting director is for the long term. The manager looks game-to-game, which they have to, to get the results, and the guy above him then has to look for the future of the club and make sure those bonds are strong and not flaky.
“It’s being on sandy ground. If it’s shifting all the time, there are no guidelines within the club, because every time you chop and change a new coach tries to bring in something new. Then, eventually, you lose the DNA of your club.”
Jones believes that he has a strong working relationship with Tan, which means there is a trust between the two of them.
“He has had his fingers burned in the past with the last one he had. It would be more about trust,” Jones adds, speaking on Tan’s apparent reluctance to appointing a director of football.
“With Vincent, it’s nothing to do with him wanting full power. He was never like that when I was there. He let me get on with it, coach it, look after the football side. I just think he had a bad experience with one and it’s stuck with him.
“I got on really well with Vincent and always got on well with him. He said to me once that I was the only manager who made him money rather than cost him money!
“My remit was to build a football club that was struggling. They needed to find someone who was going to settle everything down. When I took over they got promoted the year before and really struggled in the Championship. When I went I had more staff than players, because the club had to sell to survive. I took that job on that remit.
“I knew every window we’d have to sell players for a minimum of £5m and over the course of the season we had to get £10m in. Then we started to win games, fans came back, we moved into a new stadium, cleared the debts, had a training ground, everything was flying. The one thing I didn’t deliver was promotion.
“We came close many times, but if your best players keep getting taken away from you at the important part of the season, you’ll always struggle.
“But I loved my time there. I have still got a place down there. I loved everything about the club. I was there eight and a half years. Even under Sam Hammam or Vincent, I always got on well with them.”
Jones still has a huge love for Cardiff, he wants to not just see them back into the top flight but feels he can do it, whether that’s on the touchline or in the boardroom.
“It’s a great club and it deserves to get back to where it belongs. It’s got the infrastructure and the fan base,” he said.
“When they have gone up, the one thing they haven’t done is build to stay in it. And the Championship is the hardest one to get out of and the Premier League is the hardest one to stay in. That tells you the foundations weren’t there. They are on sandy ground.
“A similar thing happened at Wolves, but if you look at Wolves now, they realised the mistakes they made and turned themselves into an established Premier League club. Cardiff have the infrastructure and fan base to do that. It’s two of the three ingredients, you just need the players and the staff.
“Nothing would give me greater pleasure than going back to somewhere I love. I loved living there, my children loved it. If the opportunity did arise, why would I not take that chance? If there is an opportunity, then fantastic. If not, I wish them all the best.
“I only had good memories, just the one thing, that final bit, the promotion [that I didn’t get].”
Here’s how fans reacted as the ex-Stockport, So’ton, Wolves, Cardiff, Sheff Wed, Hartlepool boss eyes a return to football…
@ap_ccfc: Omer as head coach and DJ as sporting director would be my dream team
@walesfella2222: Yes yes yes yes yes.
@Martyn_1963: Same manager who allowed his players out on the piss 2 days before an important league game, lost 0 – 3 to Boro I think.
@MiamiBluebird: No thanks
@FootBrownie: The club still owes Jones money so this is more of a financial deal in settling his debt than anything else in my opinion
@Itsnoworne90775: Keep Riza as manager and Dave Jones as Director of Football. It sounds ok to me. We could do a lot worse and as Dave Jones says it’s a long term project. A lot of patience is required
@Alex_James95: One of the easiest and best things the club could do so it’s 100% not happening unfortunately!
@BluebirdJonny: Would take him as Sporting/technical director but Riza I’d keep as manager with Brian Barry-Murphy as his assistant then we can really start thinking forward instead of the current board constantly holding us back and not realising their holding us back
@Alexcdon: He’s right. I’m not sure he’s the right man for the job though.
@JGulley02: Some of the best football this club has seen was played under this man, get him back
@bluebirds19001: The club need to look at Brightons success with a director of football
@davedhjones: Considering the financial difficulties Cardiff were in at the time, he did a fine job in getting them to play offs and a cup final. He had to rely mostly on loans and small money signings. Always had great respect for him. I also worked with his brother several years ago.
@Mikeyccfc: This would be fantastic if it happened.
@ap_ccfc: I’ve been calling for DJ as sporting director for years, him and Omer as head coach would be a dream team IMO
@alexwys: He sounds desperate
@trebs93: Would be a no brainer to get him in as a DOF we’re dying for someone in then boardroom and go actually knows a bit about football!
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