'I Pushed Myself' - Matt Jones On Injury-Hampered Foxes Spell

Wales midfielder Matt Jones was a major signing for Leicester City from Leeds United in December 2000. Today, he is the Wales Under-21s manager, guiding his squad, including Foxes youngster Chris Popov, through the UEFA U21 EURO 2027 qualifiers.

2026-04-13T16:30+01:00

by John Hutchinson

Published

13 Apr, 2026

'I Pushed Myself' - Matt Jones On Injury-Hampered Foxes Spell

Wales midfielder Matt Jones was a major signing for Leicester City from Leeds United in December 2000. Today, he is the Wales Under-21s manager, guiding his squad, including Foxes youngster Chris Popov, through the UEFA U21 EURO 2027 qualifiers.

John Hutchinson

2026-04-13T16:30+01:00

'I Pushed Myself' - Matt Jones On Injury-Hampered Foxes Spell

Wales midfielder Matt Jones was a major signing for Leicester City from Leeds United in December 2000. Today, he is the Wales Under-21s manager, guiding his squad, including Foxes youngster Chris Popov, through the UEFA U21 EURO 2027 qualifiers.

John Hutchinson

2026-04-13T16:30+01:00

'I Pushed Myself' - Matt Jones On Injury-Hampered Foxes Spell

Wales midfielder Matt Jones was a major signing for Leicester City from Leeds United in December 2000. Today, he is the Wales Under-21s manager, guiding his squad, including Foxes youngster Chris Popov, through the UEFA U21 EURO 2027 qualifiers.

John Hutchinson

2026-04-13T16:30+01:00

'I Pushed Myself' - Matt Jones On Injury-Hampered Foxes Spell

Wales midfielder Matt Jones was a major signing for Leicester City from Leeds United in December 2000. Today, he is the Wales Under-21s manager, guiding his squad, including Foxes youngster Chris Popov, through the UEFA U21 EURO 2027 qualifiers.

John Hutchinson

2026-04-13T16:30+01:00

When he spoke to Club Historian John Hutchinson, Matt described how his football journey took him from Swansea to Leeds and then to City before a serious injury forced him to retire from playing at the age of 23.

“I was born and brought up in Llanelli,” Matt began. “I became a Swansea Cygnet at the age of nine, training twice a week and playing at weekends. I was also a young mascot at the old Vetch Field.

“Oxford and Chelsea were interested in signing me but a scout from Llanelli, who was a former Leeds player, invited me up there. For a couple of years, I was travelling back and forth to Leeds. Then I went to live there when I was 14.

“Because I’d left my family behind at a young age, I got respect quite quickly from the coaches. Howard Wilkinson was the manager. Gordon Strachan, Gary Speed, Gary McAllister and Eric Cantona were there. Gary Speed was one of the first big players who welcomed me to the club.

“Harry Kewell, Alan Smith, Steve McPhail, Paul Robinson, Jonathan Woodgate, Ian Harte and Gary Kelly were in the same academy, the same winning side as me. We won the league, which was very tough, and then the FA Youth Cup, which was very prestigious. When we won Youth Cup, live on Sky Sports, I scored in the first leg with a diving header.

“We all went into the reserve team and won the reserve league. The manager, David O’Leary, said we must grab the opportunity with both hands to get into the first team. Everyone played and died on the line for each other.

“About 40 young boys who were in the youth teams lived in a hostel near Thorpe Park Training Ground. We lived for football. My room-mate was a Norwegian player called Tommy Knarvick. We both made our debut in an FA Cup match at Portsmouth, coming on at the same minute. We won 5-1. The following week, I made my starting debut against Aston Villa. We beat them 2-1 and I set up Jimmy Floyd Hasselbaink for the winning goal.

“Leeds became so successful, coming third in the league and reaching the semi-final of the UEFA Champions League. The year before that, we had played in the UEFA Cup, and I played in the semi-final.

“I had planned to be a one club man, but Leeds had just spent £28M on Rio Ferdinand and wanted to recoup some of the fee. I had been a player who hadn’t cost a penny and they were having offers for me in the region of £3-£4M.

“Leicester, Charlton, Middlesbrough and Blackburn were interested in me. I went to Leicester on the Tuesday and I was going to see Graeme Souness the following day at Blackburn. I thought I would be most attracted to Blackburn.

“I was impressed that Leicester was a family orientated club which is what I had been used to at Leeds. They made me feel welcome the minute I walked through the door. The Manager, Peter Taylor, was very inspiring in terms of what he wanted to achieve for me. I felt the responsibility of stepping into Neil Lennon’s No.7 shirt. It was a great opportunity for me to shine.

“My debut was against Charlton at home. We won 2-1, and I was involved in the build-up to both goals.

“Leading up to the Christmas period, we were sitting fourth in the Premier League, but once you start losing some of the more experienced players, then everything else starts to crumble. There was a lot of pressure on Peter Taylor to add depth to the squad. It was a shame when we started to plummet down the table, especially the following season.”

In January 2002, Matt suffered a very serious injury at Anfield.

“I had always pushed myself so hard to be successful,” he explained. “I would still give 100 per cent, even if I wasn’t match fit. That’s when you start straining and stretching for balls. When I went in for the tackle on Gary McAllister, I just over stretched for the ball. My whole body landed on the opposite side of my knee. There was a massive explosion in my knee, something I had never experienced before.

“My saviours were physios Dave Rennie and Tom Freeman. The scan revealed a ruptured cruciate, that I needed an operation on, and that I would be out for a year. Dave turned it straight into a positive. He said that Roy Keane and Ruud van Nistelrooy had suffered this injury and look at them. He said it wouldn’t stop me from becoming a great player. Those words stuck with me. Every session I had with him, every time I woke up in pain, or in agony, thinking ‘I can’t do this’, it motivated me to get up and get on with it.

“When I was injured, we were in the Premier League with Peter Taylor in charge. When I came back, we were in the Championship with Micky Adams. He was totally different but he had my backing. I felt fit and strong, but match fitness was missing.

“In the 03/04 pre-season, I went on a short loan spell to Paul Hart’s Nottingham Forest to get match fitness and come back all guns firing for Leicester, newly promoted back into the Premier League. We played a pre-season friendly at the City Ground against Ajax. Wanting to impress, I threw myself into a tackle, but my back caved in under me from the angle I fell. I just felt a big crunch to my back. I tried carrying on for a bit but I ended up coming off. The following morning, the pain was so extreme! I’d never experienced pain like it in my life before. I had two prolapsed discs in my spine. I went through hell after that. As I was going into surgery, a surgeon told me that I may end up in a wheelchair. I had to start thinking about whether I’d be able to walk again. Two discs were removed.

“I was being kept positive by the physios and by my own mentality. If I gave up then, the chances are I may have ended up in a wheelchair. Dave Rennie advised me to do a diary and make a list of things I couldn’t do today but would like to do next week. I was writing things like I would like to stand for more than one minute and I would like to be able to bend over to brush my teeth without being in agony.

“I went through 18 months of torture and intensive rehab. I remember one day, on the treadmill, I had drops of sweat dripping down the side of my face. I hadn’t experienced that for a long time. It felt like heaven because it meant that I was actually moving again.

“However, I was never going to play football again. The most devastating day of my life was the press conference when I announced that I was retiring at the age of 23. It was heartbreaking but when I was out injured, the love and respect I had from the Club and the supporters was incredible.”

Matt concluded by saying: “The highlight of my career was playing for Wales on 13 occasions. Playing in the Millennium Stadium when it was full to capacity when we beat Italy and drew with Germany, with Mark Hughes in charge, was memorable.”

Since leaving Leicester, Matt has worked extensively within sports media, played some matches for Llanelli between 2007 and 2009, gained his coaching qualifications and worked at Swansea City’s academy. He became the Wales Under-18s manager in 2020 and, since 2022, he has been the Under-21s manager, guiding his team through the UEFA U21 EURO 2027 qualifiers.

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