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Ex-Stoke defender Williams not surprised by Jones axe at Southampton

Former Swansea City captain Ashley Williams isn't surprised by Nathan Jones' sacking at Southampton.

Williams was on loan at Stoke in 2019 when Jones was in charge and doesn't have fond memories of his time working under him.

According to Williams, Jones struggled to impose his own philosophy at Stoke and appeared afraid to issue instructions to senior players.

Williams says the Stoke squad were left baffled by the fact that Jones didn't tell them how to play and described him as 'insecure'.

Speaking on Rio Ferdinand's Vibe with Five YouTube channel, Williams said: "It hasn't surprised me what's happened because he came from Luton where he did well. I got the feeling on the first day. We had a Stoke team in the Championship that on paper should have walked it, but we weren't doing very well.

"We had some Champions League winners in there, Bojan, Darren Fletcher, x amount of Premier League appearances in there, Ryan Shawcross, myself, Charlie Adam, you could go from top to bottom, Jack Butland.

"I felt like when he came in, the first speech that he gave was along the "lines of 'I'm not going to teach you lot how to play". We all came out of the meeting straight away going that doesn't make sense. He already had an inferior attitude to what he was seeing in front of him instead of taking control.

"All the lads were great lads at Stoke but he straight away came across as a little bit insecure and now I'm looking at all these faces I've seen in the Prem for so long. It was like one of the rants that he had - I'm going to bend to what you guys want. We didn't want anything, we just want you to tell us what to do and we'll get it done or try our best to get it done."

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