Matthew Jones (born 1 September 1980 in

Llanelli ; ) is a market town and community (Wales), community in Carmarthenshire and the Preserved counties of Wales, preserved county of Dyfed, Wales. It is on the estuary of the River Loughor and is the largest town in the Principal areas of Wales, ...

, Wales) is a Welsh former international footballer. He made his professional debut in the Premier League for Leeds United and played his last professional game for his home town club

in the Welsh Premier League. He has played centre-midfield for most of his career, though sometimes appeared at right back. He formerly played for Leeds United and Leicester City.

Playing career

Jones was born in

, Wales and joined the Leeds United Youth Academy in 1994 at the age of fourteen. He transferred to Leicester City in December 2000 for a fee of £3.5million. He scored one league goal, in a 2–1 home defeat to

Middlesbrough Middlesbrough ( ), colloquially known as Boro, is a port town in the Borough of Middlesbrough, North Yorkshire, England. Lying to the south of the River Tees, Middlesbrough forms part of the Teesside Built up area, built-up area and the Tees Va ...

on 17 September 2001. Intended to be a replacement for Neil Lennon at Leicester City, manager Peter Taylor hailed Jones as the new Lennon, but his time with Leicester was littered with injuries. He spent a year out with a knee ligament injury received when tackling Gary McAllister in

Liverpool Liverpool is a port City status in the United Kingdom, city and metropolitan borough in Merseyside, England. It is situated on the eastern side of the River Mersey, Mersey Estuary, near the Irish Sea, north-west of London. With a population ...

's 1–0 win against Leicester in January 2002. In August 2003 he trained with

Nottingham Forest Nottingham Forest Football Club is a professional association football club based in West Bridgford, Nottinghamshire, England. The club competes in the Premier League, the top tier of English football league system, English football. Founde ...

, but on his return to Leicester three weeks later was ruled out, initially for four further months, with a back injury. After numerous operations in a bid to recover Jones decided to retire in 2004 at the age of 23. His last international game for Wales was a 2–0 away defeat to USA in May 2003, receiving a red card during his 13th appearance. In September 2007, Jones announced he would come out of retirement to play for

in the Welsh Premier League. Jones featured sporadically for Llanelli over two seasons, making 23 league appearances, scoring one goal and contributing while studying for his coaching qualifications by winning the Welsh Premier league for the first time in the club's history and furthering their success with a league cup final title completing the double that year. He has also added appearances in the Welsh Cup Final and the Champions League to his CV.

Coaching

In September 2021 Jones was appointed manager of the Wales national under-21 football team having previously managed the Wales under-18 team.

Media

Since his playing retirement Jones worked within the sports media including appearances for

BBC Sport BBC Sport is the sports division of the BBC, providing national sports coverage for BBC BBC Television, television, BBC Radio, radio and BBC Online, online. The BBC holds the television and radio UK broadcasting rights to several sports, broadc ...

Sky Sports Sky Sports is a group of British broadcasting of sports events, subscription sports channels operated by the satellite television, satellite pay television company Sky Group (a division of Comcast), and is the dominant subscription television ...

and John Barnes Soccer Night and has both written a column on the BBC Sport website and been featured as part of the BBC Wales website ''Raise your game'' series.

Personal

Jones has taken part in many marathons, including the London marathon and various charity events in the aid of his good friend, Gary Speed. He lives in his hometown with his wife and four children.

References

External links

The Matt Jones Column
– BBC Online Sport * {{DEFAULTSORT:Jones, Matt 1980 births Living people Footballers from Llanelli Wales men's international footballers Welsh men's footballers 21st-century Welsh sportsmen Welsh football managers Leeds United F.C. players Leicester City F.C. players Llanelli Town A.F.C. players Premier League players Men's association football midfielders Cymru Premier players People educated at Boston Spa Academy