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After Phil Jones sent his final message to the Manchester United players’ WhatApp group after the announcement of his retirement last summer, he “gave it a minute”. There was no response and so he departed.
Phil Jones has left the group.
“I was like ‘gone, gone, gone, I’m gone’,” he says with a laugh, “No one cares. That’s it. It’s football.”
The 33-year-old is in jovial mood as he reflects on the end of his career but “the most simple thing was quite an emotional thing to do. You’ve been on the WhatsApp group for years, bantering, sending people pictures, all sorts – you guys would have a field day.”
“You guys” are the small group of journalists in the quiet bar area of St George’s Park. The former defender has two days of media training that form part of the 18-month Uefa Pro Licence coaching course and us journalists are there to put him and the other candidates through mock press conferences.
Jones looks happy, purposeful and ready for the next phase, which, given he had not given the future much thought, is remarkably quick. Retirement had not been on the mind “because towards the end of my career, I knew I could still play. I knew I could perform, I knew I was still at that level. But my body just couldn’t give it and it was really difficult.”
The end was hard, the knee injury that first reared up when Jones was an academy player at Blackburn eventually calling time on his senior career of 14 years. “It was tough the way it ended, not the way I would’ve liked, but I’m still proud of what I did,” he says. “I have so many fond memories, proud moments, and I’ve lived a dream.”
In one session of the Pro Licence course the aspiring coaches had to bring in six photos; three personal and three football-related. Jones’s football ones charted the highs and lows of his career; somewhat weirdly wearing the No 7 shirt and playing in midfield for England in a friendly against Brazil in 2013 – “I was terrible” – winning the Premier League title with United in 2013 and his comeback game against Wolves in January 2022 after an injury layoff of 700 days.
“My knee was in bits and I knew I was going to play because Harry Maguire was injured,” says Jones about the game against Wolves. “Just to get on to the pitch – honestly, it gives me goosebumps now – was the biggest achievement because I was down and out. I’d had so many operations, four or five operations on my knee.
“Even though we lost the game 1-0, everyone was high-fiving in the changing room afterwards. I just sat there and I knew that was probably one of the last games or my last season.”
During his time away from the pitch, Jones found himself “getting really bitter towards the game” and he needed time to “reflect and come to terms with what happened and how it happened”. The level of scrutiny he was under also took a toll, with criticism and abuse, in person and online, tough to take. That has given him a lot of sympathy for Mason Mount and Luke Shaw, who are facing much criticism despite few knowing what is going on behind the scenes.
“I feel so sorry for Mason and Luke and I know exactly what they’re feeling,” says Jones. “For me, it was almost an embarrassed feeling. You’re at Man United, the biggest club in the world, all you want to do is play football – I just loved playing football like a little kid. When you have something taken away from you it’s difficult to deal with and you have the fans and social media to deal with.”
At the end of his contract with United, in 2023, Jones signed up for the PFA Business School’s Global Football Sport Directorship course, the Uefa A Licence course and began working with United’s under-18s. He could not just sit around.
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“You find yourself at home and the missus is looking at you thinking: ‘Well, are you doing anything today?’ You’re so used to being active, being out of the house and travelling. It was difficult,” Jones says. “
“Footballers are like robots these days, you’re off one coach, on another flight, off that flight, back into a game, training … I enjoyed the first few weeks out of it but then I got itchy feet. That’s why I went down the directors route, just to give me a different focus to football. But my bread and butter is on the grass and it’s what I really enjoy doing.”
Jones is not contracted to work with United’s under-18s, but “it’s something they allow me to do and what I wanted to do, to broaden my horizon on the coaching side of things and see how they do things. I feel like I’m in a position now where I’m ready for a challenge.” What that challenge is, he is not sure.
“I’m not naive enough to think I’m going to become a head coach or a manager in the next two or three years,” Jones says. “I understand I’m on the other side of the ladder and I’ve got to work myself up. I’m absolutely ready to do that.”
What will a Phil Jones team look like? “Aggressive, intense, flexible. I’m a winner,” he says. “I want to win games of football and win at all costs. Whether that means I have to change personnel or go down a different route to get results. It’s a results business.
“You go into a job these days and you try to tinker with the system too much, or you try and outline your principles too early, and you get done in the first five games and you’re in trouble straight away. So that’s something you’ve got to drip-feed into the team, drip-feed into the squad. I want to play expansive, attractive football. We all do. But it doesn’t always work like that.”
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