Confidence and grit in Dave Jones's locker

Manchester United, who are so far ahead of their Premiership rivals that they might carry their own `Mind the Gap' announcer, visit The Dell on Monday with an unexpectedly high measure of respect for their humble opponents.

This has less to do with their 6-3 defeat there last season when, mysteriously, they blamed their grey shirts, than the presence of David Jones as Southampton manager.

When Jones was in charge of Stockport, Alex Ferguson would invite him over for cups of tea and football chatter. He recognised the potential of his quietly passionate young rival.

"I was impressed that somebody that busy could find the time for me," said Jones, whose passion seemed even quieter than usual last week following a hernia operation. "Manchester United is the club we should all be aiming at, as Liverpool once were."

Those who measure standards by performances against Manchester United, have chosen the cruellest of barometers and Jones has already achieved enough in his brief career to be immune to such capricious judgment, but there are still some who will watch Monday's game looking for some confirmation that he is one of the brightest young managers in the land.

When he was appointed manager of Stockport in 1995 he gave himself "four or five years" to become a Premiership manager. He did it in two and a bit. Last season he piloted Stockport to the FA Cup fourth round and (beating Southampton) the League Cup semi-finals, and also to promotion to the First Division. This season he has lifted Southampton, those perennial relegation mud-wrestlers, to 13th place.

He is 41 and on the foothills of middle-age, that dangerous time of life when the unwary man starts to look covetously at Volvo estates, gazes in Dunn & Co menswear shops with a `That's nice' expression and wonders why he has only just started to appreciate the music of Mel Torme.

For a football manager, however, this is young and Jones looks and sounds even younger than his years despite the lucid confidence in his Brookside vowels. Perhaps having his career as a central defender cruelly abridged by injury has something to do with it.

"I still feel very bitter about it. I was 23 and at the height of my career. I had played for Everton and England under-21s and had been pencilled in for a full cap. The tackle came in only my third game as a Coventry player. And it wasn't necessary.

"But I don't want to name the player who did it. And if it hadn't happened I might not be on the road I'm on now. And I wouldn't have played in places like Hong Kong. Unlike Brian Clough, for example, the injury did not finish me for good.

"I went on to play for Preston and even last season, when I was at Stockport, I was winning the league and cup double with DKS Packaging of the Southport Sunday League."

Jones was on holiday in Majorca last summer when he received a phone call from Brendan Elwood, the Stockport chairman. "I said `Who do they want to buy?' He said `You'.

"I knew exactly what I was getting into here. And the players had expected a big name to take charge so I had to prove myself to them as much as they had to prove themselves with me."

Two of the biggest names in the game, Alan Ball, the manager born with a wooden spoon in his mouth, and Graeme Souness had both failed. And others had ruled so ephemerally that at The Dell they have a manager of the season award.

Jones has gambled, thoughtfully, and it has come off. There were those who pulled faces when he paid £2 million for David Hirst, who had enough injuries at Sheffield Wednesday to qualify for a Sam Peckinpah film. "David has played 14 games on the trot and not missed a day's training."

Then there was the equally controversial purchase of Carlton Palmer. "I knew Carlton had had problems at Leeds but if that had not been the case a number of the so-called bigger clubs might have been in for him.

"As for Matt Le Tissier, he's going through a rough spell but it's up to him to shake himself out of it. The lads will fight and scrap for him but he's got to do a fair amount himself. The others are not going to let him stroll around. The best way to get the best out of Le Tiss is to give him plenty of ball."

Jones has sold 11 players for £4.9 million and brought in six for £4.6 million. The precocious Kevin Davies was already there, as one of Souness's happier legacies. "The big difference with managing a Premiership club is that I have to have a good knowledge of foreign players. With all due respect to Stockport, that was not the case with them, although I did bring in a couple of Portuguese players.

"What has pleased me this season is the way we have scrapped for a point when all has seemed lost, like the time at Bolton when we were down to 10 men. And I was delighted to go to Everton and win by playing good football. Because I'm an Evertonian. My blood is blue.

"The memory that grinds away at me is being beaten 3-1 by Sheffield Wednesday. We were winning 2-1 and it could have been 51 but we threw it away through stupidity. We can't afford stupidity on Monday."