Caretaker gaffer has hailed the players and skipper Inigo Calderon especially following our fight back against Reading on Boxing Day.
Brighton found themselves two nil down early in the game, but fought back and Calderon grabbed a late late leveller to give us a share of the soils.
Speaking to the Official Site Jones beamed.
‘Calde is a credit to himself and the club. He has to put up with a lot in competing with a fantastic player like Bruno. I even thought about having him alongside me, but he’s too important to us and I wanted his focus on playing. For him to pop up like that was fantastic and very fitting. He has done that type of thing for the Albion for many years, so it wasn’t a shock.’
As for the game itself, and his pride at leading the team again, he admitted it was very much a case of mixed emotions at the final whistle.
‘I wanted to win the game and I’m disappointed in the end that we did not go on and win. I felt we deserved to over the 90 minutes. We had the possession and the chances to win it, but we shot ourselves in the foot by conceding two bad goals. We showed a lot of character, a lot of quality and a lot of desire. I’m proud of the players as they gave me a great performance but I am gutted because of the start we made – that is what killed us.’
Jones went on to say that the plan had been to start quickly and start brightly so we could help get the fans onside, but we couldn’t have had a ‘worse possible start’ in reality, but he knows that has been a theme for us all season long, and we concede at bad times and give ourselves too much to do at points, but at least against Reading we at least got the point.
The positive though was the second half performance as for him that was more like a Brighton showing, but that has to be how we start games and play for 90 minutes now.
With Jones remaining in charge for the foreseeable future, he also talked more about the challenge of being the manager and how proud he is to beat the club.
‘Life is about challenges and I have always worked extremely hard. I had to do so as a player and I have continued to do so as a coach. I was very proud to be asked to take the team. I loved virtually every minute of it. I loved the preparation and yes, when we were 2-0 down I felt that perhaps it could be better, but the reaction was fantastic. I love this club and love my job. It was a fantastic opportunity to lead the team out.’
Jones finished by thanking the fans for responding to his pre match rallying call, and he knows they couldn’t have done more to spur the players on.
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