Jonny Evans has decided to step down from his role at Manchester United as Head of Loans and Pathways, just six months after being appointed.
The 2024/25 season saw Jonny Evans retire after a long career in the game.
Evans enjoyed two separate spells at Old Trafford after graduating from United’s academy and becoming an important player under Sir Alex Ferguson.
Although Louis van Gaal would sell Evans to West Brom in 2015, the centre-back would return to United as a free agent in 2023.
Evans was one of United’s most experienced players during the final years of his playing career. That played a role in United’s thinking at the end of last season when they offered him a role as Head of Loans and Pathways to remain at the club.
However, it emerged this week that Evans would step away from his United role to spend more time with his family and focus on what he wants to do next in his post-playing career.
Evans has a lot to offer at the highest level of the game. It bodes well that he played under multiple top managers throughout his career because he can take those experiences with him regardless of what he does next.
Jonny Evans attending F1 in Qatar
Photo by Jon Hobley | MI News/NurPhoto via Getty Images
Jonny Evans takes a step back at Man Utd
It came as a surprise that Evans was stepping away from his role at United.
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Just six months after being appointed, Evans has decided to stand down and rethink his plans for the future.
Evans made 241 appearances for United throughout his career, winning three Premier League titles, two FA Cups and one Champions League, along with two League Cups and a FIFA Club World Cup.
On top of that success, Evans won the FA Cup with Leicester City in 2021 and represented Northern Ireland at the European Championships in 2016.
Respected United reporter Laurie Whitwell has provided an update on Evans to stress that he wanted some time away from football with his family, but that doesn’t mean he won’t return to the beautiful game in a different capacity.
Whitwell explains that United don’t want to give the impression that it’s ‘jobs for the boys,’ but Evans wasn’t any old former player. He has always been a fantastic servant to the football club.
“It can’t just be jobs for the boys, right? But I think we can all agree that Jonny Evans is an intelligent, very experienced individual that has got Manchester United in his veins, and then has also got other experiences from other clubs, but came back as a player and managed to force his way back into the team,” Whitwell said on the Talk of the Devils podcast.
“That shows his quality. Spoke very compellingly about the redundancies that were going on at the club when we were in LA. And so you’ve got that emotional quality to him, that human intelligence, I would say.
“So I thought this was going to be a good fit for him. In the loans and pathways, obviously, he’s been an academy player. He can speak to the young lads.
“Yeah. So we’re told that he wants to spend more time in his family. And I think that’s a fair assessment of it, given it is such a, it is an arduous job.”
Jonny Evans previously tipped for management role
Northern Ireland international Conor Washington recently tipped Evans to be a manager in the future.
Evans won 107 caps for Northern Ireland but his next chapter is unknown.
When asked about Evans during the summer, Washington said via News Letter: “Jonny thinks about the game, really kind of horrible to play against, relentlessly calculating things in his head. He’s a good talker. He doesn’t say loads, but when he does, it’s considered.
“And I think he’s got an air of, although his career sort of bought him the respect and things like that, I think lads respect him anyway just because of the character he is.
“So yeah, it wouldn’t surprise me to see Jonny on a touchline, to be honest.”
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