The objective personality of Nathan Jones
I have to tell you it is still making me smile. Watching Nathan Jones clap along to his own song bellowed out from the Covered End after the game on Saturday. He did the same at Cheltenham in the week.
Bearing in mind what we have been used to, Jones’ interviews and antics are a joy to watch.
I want to catch everyone of his words, every uneasy silence and every facial expression. He is compulsive viewing.
His Welsh lilt leads you along a road of expectation and belief. Like most media savvy managers he does have an array of stock words and answers, but the thrill is that one never quite knows where he will go with a question that is posed to him.
Jones has come famously unstuck with some of his post match comments previously, especially and unfortunately for him, when they had larger audiences, but for me after what we have had to put up with, he is a bloke I can get behind.
Whether it’s family, a mate, a colleague, a boss or a mentor my overriding gut is that I want to be down there with him in the trenches on the same team.
Nathan Jones is that bloke. Of course, naturally at some point in the future he won’t be that bloke but for now and for many tomorrow’s when I am stood in a football stadium he will make me want to scream his name whilst my heart is racing.
I’m just a simple football fan, led by heart over head but yesterday I read an interesting analysis from Mike Holden on X (Twitter). Mike has a rare personality type that is known as INTJ (introverted, intuitive, thinking, judging). An INTJ is curious, rational and focuses on abstract information rather than concrete details.
Mike is a football fan and on his X page he profiles football managers and coaches and their leadership styles applying what is called an “objective personality system and other mental models.”
On Sunday he wrote about Nathan Jones. The full tweet is below, and it’s a fascinating view backed up with intuition. Mike explains how Jones’ kind of character was always going to fail in a dressing room where hierarchies already existed.
“Nathan is a Decider. Fixated with people, not things – specifically the character of people.”
Take a read.
I always thought that Curbs had excellent people skills, confirmed by his comments on Charlton L:ive.
I’ve definately warmed to Nathan and its great to see at last also manager who has connected fully with players,staff,fans and Ethel the tea lady.
We will have to increase the size of the technical area or strap him with a bungy rope to Curtis Flemming if excitement gets the better of him.
Carry on Nathan your making a real difference to the shambles we recently endured.
Yes agree that Curbs had the management skills especially when he had to deal with Steve Brown😂
Curbs was similar in that he wanted to sign players who fitted in to the team ethos/club culture and didn’t think they were too big for Charlton.
Having the right sort of people is important in any company. We have all seen examples of where a player joins our club “for one last contract”. Some players like say Paolo di Canio relish the opportunity and their one last shot at glory, while others such as Jimmy Floyd Hasselbaink were clearly there for the pay cheque.
I assume that in signing players like Connor Wickham NJ is making sure that he’s in the former category. CW hasn’t played much recently to get him up to speed is going to take a lot of hard work by both the club and player, and then opportunities will be limited, it’s no point us making the effort if the will isn’t there from the player.
As for NJ, yes he’s enthusiastic, up for the challenge and is rapidly getting the fans on board. But the most important skill is communication, that is translating what he wants and expects to the players and that he has a high strategic sense which the team needs to trust. It’s the players who have to buy into this and then deliver and so far, so good. He’s got Daniel Kanu and Karoy Anderson performing to a level that was beyond them earlier this season, Alfie May looks to be back in mean goal scoring mode and others around the pitch are putting in shifts notably Terell Thomas for example.
This is so right!
I’m excited about our future too, for the first time in a long long while. I have confidence that things will improve (indeed they already have), slowly, steadily, and with that most crucial of all things humanity.
In Nathan we trust!
And CA of course 😉
Haha. Thank you Chris. Vote for CA 🗳️
If you beat trump you got my vote CA 👍
MAGA …. Make Addicks Great Again 😀
Agree with everything said and yes exciting times. When I watched the post match interviews after the City v Liverpool game, Pep mentioned it was Klopp’s organisational skills that he really admired and I think that is exactly what we have with NJ, yes he is a real motivator but in a very short time the way he has all the players knowing there positions has been key as they are basically the same players as before he arrived.
I am also wondering if he is questioning or working on Chucks attitude . As much as i love him when he does play , he definitely does have a side to him that questions his temperament and not sure NJ will stand for that hence CW arrival and his interesting personality comments. ?
Not sure re Chuks. I believe he has had some mental issues regarding his fitness, which is not surprising bearing in mind his career has been a shade of what it should’ve been. This is what his 7th Charlton manager he has worked under? That can’t help, but I think Jones’ man management skills will be different to others he has worked under.
Methven needs to keep his big mouth shut spouting off about West Ham and Palace allegedly stopping funding…..now we have to apologise for his unfounded remarks….idiot!!!!