How Did It All Go Wrong For Phil Jones?

Perhaps Sir Alex Ferguson could be forgiven for his enthusiasm brimming over. After all, Manchester United’s manager was in the midst of celebrating his 13th and final Premier League title, but he ended up placing a millstone around Phil Jones’ neck.

“You saw Jones tonight,” Ferguson said after the youngster starred at centre-half during a 3-0 defeat of Aston Villa to secure United’s title in April 2013. “Arguably, the way he is looking, he could be our best-ever player.”

Jones had an impossible accolade to live up to, yet Ferguson was not alone in making such bold predictions. In December 2011, Sir Bobby Charlton compared Jones to Duncan Edwards. Charlton’s fellow Busby Babe and great friend died in the Munich Air Disaster of 1958 at 21, a seemingly limitless talent unfulfilled yet still leaving a huge legacy.

Far less tragic but nonetheless poignant, the chances of Jones ever coming close to meeting those expectations are disappearing. He is 24, still young for a centre-back, but he has not played a competitive match for United since a 2-1 home win over Swansea City on Jan. 2. His career is at an uncertain crossroads, with the route away from Manchester looking like the best chance of revival.

Injuries have prevented him from blooming into the mature, commanding centre-back Jones ought to have become by now. They’ve also kept him from becoming the all-action central midfielder Ferguson employed him as on occasion or even thriving in the full-back position in which he has played for both United and England. Maybe that versatility has counted against him, but in truth, Jones’ problem has been an impetuous style that time and experience failed to smooth out, an overcommitment that eventually caused him harm.

An injury Jones suffered ahead of the 2014 World Cup offers a case in point. A collision with Hull City’s Maynor Figueroa in May was avoidable, yet Jones ploughed into the Honduran and came off second-best. Clutching his shoulder in pain, he eventually left the Old Trafford field in visible distress. Jones made it to Brazil, but missing England’s preparation matches reduced him to a reserve, with his only appearance coming in a closing group match with Costa Rica that came once Roy Hodgson’s team had no chance of reaching the knockouts.

Although Ferguson’s successors, David Moyes and Louis van Gaal, both gave Jones runs in their teams, each were frequently denied his services by injuries, and last season was wrecked before it was even started when he suffered a preseason thrombosis on a calf muscle.

“There is not much you can do,” he said in September while admitting that Chris Smalling and Daley Blind had moved ahead of him as Van Gaal’s chosen centre-back pairing.

Now that Jose Mourinho has added Eric Bailly, who has starred for United in their two victories from two Premier League matches so far, Jones has fallen further down the pecking order. He was not named in the matchday squad for either of those defeats of Bournemouth and Southampton and isn’t expected to be involved for Saturday’s trip to Hull, either.

This week saw Stoke City manager Mark Hughes admit an interest in a loan deal, though the suggestion is that any move could take place on the proviso of Jones’ being fully fit. There was also a speculative link with a move to Arsenal as one of the candidates to fill the great hole in Arsene Wenger’s defence left by injuries to Per Mertesacker and Gabriel.

In truth, any move for Jones would have represented desperation at Arsenal, especially because he chose Old Trafford over the Emirates when being sold by Blackburn Rovers in summer 2011 and, according to ESPN FC sources, after Wenger turned down the chance to sign Jones as part of a summer 2014 deal that would have taken Thomas Vermaelen to United.

There was another suggestion this week that Mourinho, in any event, would block any of his players from being sold to archrival Wenger, who now appears to have gotten his man in Shkodran Mustafi.

If true, that shot at his rival is by far the most use Mourinho has made of Jones, and that is a sad reflection of his current status, as the Lancastrian might once have been just the type of player his new manager liked. When a youngster at Blackburn, another player he was compared to was John Terry, the organiser and hard man in Chelsea’s defence as three Premier League titles were masterminded by Mourinho.

Jones, a more introverted character, might not have possessed Terry’s leadership skills but was powerful, strong in the air, deceptively quick and fearless. Mourinho is reported to fancy a commanding defender to complete his United squad, but it appears Jones is not a candidate.