Right, before starting let’s make a few things absolutely clear: this is not a criticism of Malky Mackay, who’s doing an excellent job. It is not a criticism or examination of Malky’s appointment. It is not even an analysis or debate over whether or not sacking Dave Jones was the right move. What it is, is a defence of Dave Jones, an angry reaction to the near constant criticism he seems to be receiving, either directly or implicitly by comparing this season’s team to last. It is also an attempt to remind those with short memories what a superb job Jones did at Cardiff City, as depressingly, many seem either to have forgotten or to have never appreciated it in the first place.
On Tuesday night, co-commentating on our game with Coventry for Radio Wales, Jones informed listeners that he had applied for the vacant manager’s position at Leicester City, saying that he had come down to the final two applicants, before the Foxes opted to appoint Nigel Pearson for a second spell at the club. This revelation prompted what was essentially guffawing on twitter from a decent number of Cardiff fans. Comments flew in, most with the general message of “Yeah right, whatever Dave” and “I applied for the Leicester job too and got down to the final two, I just didn’t tell anyone. Hahaha” – wit worth of Oscar Wilde, undoubtedly. Why did this suggestion cause such amusement and consternation?
Any relatively objective examination of Jones’ CV proves him to be a more than viable candidate. Even ignoring (for now) his job at Cardiff: he has earned promotion to the Championship (then known as Division 1) and reached a League Cup semi-final with Stockport; did a very steady job at Southampton in the Premier League (before the horrendous, disgusting and unfounded accusations that changed his life); and earned promotion to the Premier League with Wolves (where “choker” Jones’ side won a play-off final 3-0). Clearly, the man has an excellent track record at Championship level.
This brings us closer to home, and Jones’ job at Cardiff City. Any way you view it, Jones’ tenure saw massive and hugely impressive improvements at the club. Off the field, most of his time as manager was with the backdrop of horrendous money problems behind the scenes that had a huge effect on the playing squad: Jones was forced to sell the likes of McAnuff, Collins, Gabbidon, Jerome, Gunter, Ramsey, Chopra, Loovens, Johnson (the list goes on and on), simply to keep the club afloat. He did this, bringing in replacements for a tiny fraction of the money received, and continued to improve the team year on year, a remarkable achievement.
Want more evidence of the club’s growth under Jones? Just look at average attendance figures. Jones’ first season’s average 11,802 whereas by his final season (in a new stadium of course) that average had almost doubled to 23,231. That constitutes a huge increase, considering we did not change division in that period, and represents the growth in stature of the club under Jones, as well as making the club much more money from ticket sales, of course, helping to make the club a far more attractive proposition for investors (and indeed, prospective future managers).
On the pitch, as fans we were privileged to see the sort of success unheard of for decades at Cardiff City. Fourth place finishes in the last two seasons constituted the club’s highest league finish for 40 years. Looked at objectively, Jones’s teams overachieved in every season of his tenure, apart from his final year. Even this though, is debatable. As @mirkobolesan has pointed out on Twitter, of Cardiff’s squad last season, only 2 players (Bellamy and Bothroyd) are now playing in the Premier League, so perhaps the squad wasn’t as good as often assumed.
Supporters were able to see some of the most talented players to play for the club in generations: Bothroyd, Koumas (first time around), Ramsey, Whittingham etc were/are wonderful players to watch and played for a side committed to good, attractive, attacking football. This last point is an important one to remember, especially considering how many Championship sides and managers achieve (or try to achieve) success based on dour, defensive, long-ball football. Of course, probably Jones’ biggest achievement was taking the club to the FA Cup final in 2008. Us, Cardiff City, in an FA Cup final! Who can honestly say they thought they’d ever see that? Yet the manager who took us to Wembley is so often and easily derided by large sections of our fan-base.
The final point, one particularly relevant recently, is the denigration of Jones by unfavourably comparing this season’s team to last, or to his teams in general. After the Reading away victory, even a Cardiff City employee tweeted: “As against Southampton, Palace & every game in Cup, today’s was a game we would not have won last season.” This sort of quote is basically being regurgitated from a lot of people every time we win a game this season, presumably because we show “grit” and “passion” and other things terrace geniuses seem to believe have more input than tactical intelligence and, y’know, ability to play football. Funnily enough though, after we drew 1-1 away to Leeds, a game in which we were battered for the vast majority of the 90 minutes, nobody seemed to be pointing to last season’s 4-0 annihilation of the Yorkshiremen at Elland Road and saying “see, these are the types of games we’d have won last season”.
The easiest way to debunk this myth is to resort to cold, hard, facts. Cardiff City are 18 games into the season and have 31 points. After 18 games last season? 36 points. For those who don’t trust their maths, that’s 5 points more. Clearly, to this point at least, we are not winning games “we wouldn’t have won last season” or if we are, we’ve dropping points in a lot of games we wouldn’t have done last term! This isn’t a criticism of our performance this season, which has been very impressive and hopefully will continue to be, but it does clearly show that lazy comparisons with last season are not based in reality and those making them should try doing some research to back up their views.
Obviously, Jones had his faults, no-one will argue otherwise and he wasn’t perfect. What this doesn’t change though, is that the job he did was nothing short of excellent, and whether you like him or not, one of our best ever managers earned and deserves the respect so many idiots seem desperate to deny him.
Tags: Dave Jones
Dearest Joe,
I wholeheartedly agree with the sentiment of this blog but I would like to point out that while we picked up 36 points in the first 18 games of last season we only amassed another 44 points in the remaining 28 games. It is possible, if not probable, that we will finish with a better tally than last year.
Therefore I think it’s far too soon for any proper comparison with last year’s side.
That is all.
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Great stuff Joe, totally agree.
Always get barked at if I put this point across to any supoorters
Club did need a change at the end of last season (the negativity was horrendus), but I hope in years to come Jones get the dues he deserves…
Darling Adam,
Of course you’re right about it being too early for proper comparison (I did say “to this point” to try and cover myself on that one), but as I’m sure you’re aware it’s not stopping people trying to do it!
As for the rest of the season, obviously I hope we pick up more points than we did during the same period last time out but of course, there’s not way of knowing either way. It is worth remembering that Malky’s Watford team went on a brilliant run around the turn of the year then fell away badly though.
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Simon,
Thanks for your comment, appreciate it.
I think you’re right about the end of last season, I felt at the time a change was needed so I don’t have a big problem with the club’s decision to let Jones go.
As you say, hopefully in years to come he’ll be appreciated a lot more, although I suppose to a large extent that could depend on how Malky does in the next few years, as that will add a lot of context to Jones’ achievements in his final few years. I’ll always think he did an extremely good job though.
Joe
Good article, Joe. The one question I often use to anti-Jones brigade is ‘who from our recent past would you have preferred?’. That’s not to say the likes of Lawrence didn’t do well but the likes of Burrows and Neal were not in the same league as Jones.
That said, a clean broom was needed last May so it’s onwards and upwards under Malky!