Under-pressure Southampton boss Nathan Jones has attempted to bat away a question about the importance of the Saints’ clash with Wolves on Saturday. Jones has been accused of trying shift blame for the six defeats in seven games since he took charge away from himself. However, in his pre-match press conference he insisted he was doing the opposite, declaring: “I was doing the categorical opposite, because I was accepting responsibility for all results. What I’ve said was that I’ve compromised certain things that I do on a day to day basis, which are my decisions.” But when asked whether the Wolves games was “make or break” for him, he dodged the question.
Nathan Jones said: “I can’t answer that. I don’t know if this weekend is make or break, I’m just going to try and win a football game. I know there’s been a lot of speculation and outside noise and so on, but I can’t affect that. What I said was that I have compromised things on a day-to-day basis and that they have been my decisions. I felt I was being honest and accepting responsibility for every single result. All I can assure people is we work hard, we do good work on the training ground. We do really good work here and I just want results to turn, because what I haven’t got is the results to back that up. I want to accept responsibility, ‘if you want a headline it’s ‘I take full responsibility’. And that’s what I’ve done in every interview for the last six years. I’ve never ever put it on anyone else. Now we’re really focused on the weekend.”