Nathan Jones (Welsh footballer)

Nathan Jason Jones (born 28 May 1973) is a Welsh professional football manager who is the manager of EFL Championship club Charlton Athletic. He is also a former player who played as a left-back and a midfielder. Jones began his career with Football Conference club Merthyr Tydfil before joining Luton Town in the summer of 1995. He became homesick at Luton so took an opportunity to move to Spain with Badajoz and then Numancia and returned to England with Southend United in 1997. Jones spent three seasons at Roots Hall which included a brief loan spell with Scarborough in 1999. He moved on to Brighton & Hove Albion in 2000 and was part of the team that won three promotions in five years. He joined Yeovil Town in 2005 where he spent seven seasons in League One making over 200 appearances. Whilst at Yeovil, Jones began taking his coaching badges, spending time as first-team coach of Yeovil Town Ladies and later player-assistant manager of the first team. He left Yeovil in 2012 and joined Charlton Athletic as their under-21 professional development coach, a role which he held for one season. He returned to Brighton as a member of the coaching staff to Óscar García, Sami Hyypiä and Chris Hughton. Jones left Brighton in January 2016 to take over as manager of League Two club Luton Town. He guided Luton to the League Two play-offs in 2016–17 losing out to Blackpool, but earned promotion to League One in 2017–18, finishing in second place. With Luton on course for a second consecutive promotion, Jones left in January 2019 for Championship club Stoke City. His time at Stoke was ultimately unsuccessful, with him being dismissed in November 2019. Jones returned to Luton in May 2020, subsequently saving the club from relegation following the restart of the season after the UK's COVID-19 lockdown, and guiding them to a playoff place in the 2021–22 season. In November 2022, he left Luton for a second time and joined Premier League club Southampton, but lasted just three months in the role before he was sacked. Jones was appointed manager of Charlton Athletic in February 2024, and led the club to promotion to the Championship via the League One play-offs, defeating Leyton Orient in the final at Wembley in May 2025.