In the short space of time Jordan Jones has played for SAFC he has certainly impressed, achieving two goals, four assists and two Man of the Match awards in the space of 11 games since joining from Rangers at the end of January.
The Middlesbrough academy graduate started his senior career at Kilmarnock and would grab the interest of Rangers after some impressive performances at Kilmarnock’s Rugby Park, he would eventually make the move to Ibrox in 2019. The 26-year-old winger’s journey wouldn’t be all sunshine and rainbows, however. Last year Jones was suspended for seven games by the Scottish FA after attending a party, breaching the Covid regulations at the time, and would subsequently not play for Rangers again before his loan down to Wearside.
Looking at Jones’ playing style it is something which we have been crying out for. Jones plays fast attacking football and is realistically the only player at the club who can get behind defenders and create chances by using his immense pace. The winger has one of the best pass completion rates at the club, which doesn’t come as a shock considering he already has four assists to his name and is averaging 1.5 key passes per game.
In the 11 appearances that we have to judge Jones on its clear to see that his best positions are as a right winger; his natural position, or as a central attacking midfielder, the latter being the position which he has made half of his assists from. He averages between a rating of 6.9 to 7.6 per game with his key passes, pace and dribbling being the biggest factors to his strong performances. Jones’ best games have undoubtably been the 2-0 victory at Portsmouth last month where bagged a goal, assist and the man of the match award and last Friday’s game against Oxford where his assist and man of the match performance helped us come back from 1-0 to win 3-1.
VERDICT
Jordan Jones arrived in January with many saying he would run League One and was easily Championship calibre, and his performances back this up. His ability on the ball, passing, finishing and pace are great attributes which fans are already seeing pay off as we enter the final run-in. The one concern with Jones is his decision making on and off the pitch, as we’ve already said he was slapped with a seven-match ban for his reckless decision to party in the middle of a pandemic but prior to this event Jones receive a red card back in September 2019 for a stupid tackle on Celtic’s Moritz Bauer, a tackle which also saw Jones side-lined due to injury for two months. Both decisions cost Jones a good amount of playing time at Ibrox, with the former probably costing him his place at Rangers and is ultimately the reason he was loaned out to us.
No matter the reason, Jones has been an invaluable member of our squad and has greatly increased the likelihood we go up to the Championship with his contributions on the pitch saying everything we need to know about Jones since he’s left Rangers. There are a few reports suggesting he could be available for around £600,000 this summer with the player apparently keen to leave the Scottish Champions for regular game time. We’re sure many if not all Sunderland fans will agree that Lee Johnson should be signing Jordan as soon as the summer transfer window opens to guarantee his talent for next season no matter which league we’re in.
