Phil Jones: FA Cup final was gutting, but I'm used to people's criticism

The glare of playing for England, and Manchester United, can be harsh, especially when a player is exposed as Phil Jones was in the FA Cup final defeat by Chelsea.

Jones was badly caught out by the speed and movement of Eden Hazard for Chelsea’s decisive goal, eventually conceding a penalty, and will be hoping to make amends when England face Belgium in their final Group G fixture.

“It happens to every single player, all over the world, every day,” Jones said. “Some get highlighted more than others, that’s football. I’m used to it now and I like to think I’m wise enough and experienced enough to deal with it and get on with it.”

Nevertheless, it was a defeat that left United without a trophy, a state of affairs that Jones is blunt about even if he is determined to “move on” now that he is at the World Cup with England.

“You have to, because I can’t sit on my a--- and dwell on it for weeks and weeks and weeks then I’d be ready to jump off a bridge if I think like that. It was disappointing, gutted. But that’s football these things happen and there’s no point,” Jones said.

The 26-year-old is certainly a player who divides opinion. He may be struggling to force his way into Gareth Southgate’s starting XI for the opening group fixture against Tunisia on Monday but a previous England manager, Fabio Capello, remarkably once compared him to Franco Baresi and Fernando Hierro. Jones is self-deprecating in his reaction. 

“I remember one headline after the Italy game away, someone said I was ‘no Pirlo’ or something like that,” he said having played, dismally, as a holding midfielder in that 1-1 draw in Turin under Roy Hodgson in 2015. “I could have told them that before the game! I remember thinking ‘no s---, Sherlock!’ But that’s midfield. But you have a laugh and a joke about it. It’s all good.”

Even so, Jones knows his worth and is proud of the fact that, along with Gary Cahill, he is the only survivor from England’s last match at a World Cup finals, albeit a goalless dead-rubber against Costa Rica in 2014.

“I’ve done well. I’m still at United – since 2011-12 – and six years on, I’m still there,” he said. “I’m sure after the World Cup there’ll be some other story about me going somewhere else. But I am not interested.

“When you are at a club like Manchester United or Manchester City, you are always going to get bigger hype, bigger headlines than if you are at a lesser club, no disrespect. You wouldn’t be studying me as much and that is part and parcel of being at one of the biggest clubs in the world. I love it.” 

Even when it means replays of that Hazard goal being played again and again.

Jones’s United team-mate Marcus Rashford returned to training yesterday, having missed England’s first two sessions in Russia with a knee problem. “He looked good. Moving well, seems well, seems fit,” Jones said. “I asked him how it was, and he said he felt good.”