The inside info Middlesbrough have on Luton Town ahead of Championship opener

Graeme Jones fears he has already given Jonathan Woodgate too much of a helping hand as the Football League season kicks off on Friday night with an intriguing battle of two rookie bosses.

Woodgate takes his Middlesbrough side to newly-promoted Luton, who brought in Jones in May after West Brom dispensed with his services as assistant manager in March.

Just a month before that Albion exit, Woodgate – then Tony Pulis’ No 2 at the Riverside Stadium – had been busy picking his brains after a Championship fixture.

“Me and Jonathan had a good chat last February,” Jones said. “Middlesbrough beat West Brom 3-2 in a really strange game and Jonathan was intrigued to know about the system we were using at the time. Looking back, I maybe told him a little bit too much!”

How Woodgate changed opinions

Woodgate, who at 39 is 10 years Jones’ junior, soon discovered his first task was to win over supporters who were not happy he had been chosen as Pulis’ successor.

“At the start I was getting caned,” Woodgate said. “People were saying ‘we don’t want him’.

“I was getting hammered but no one knew what I wanted to do, no one heard me speak, no one knew my ideas, my vision for the football club, no one had a clue what I wanted to do apart from me.

“But when they heard me speaking and they’ve heard the vision I’ve got for the football club a lot of them have changed their opinion.”

Learning from Martinez

Jones has promised Luton fans attacking football with enough pragmatism in defence having worked under Roberto Martinez at Swansea, Wigan, Everton and finally Belgium.

He left the Spaniard to return to English football with Albion last season but Luton’s style will represent a culmination of a decade’s work as a pair.

“In the early days myself and Roberto thought we could outscore everybody but you realise if you just pay a bit of attention to that defensive aspect you can win games as well,” he said.

“I would never set the team up to draw 0-0. I would not think about it. You don’t win an FA Cup with Wigan by keeping a clean sheet – you have to go and score goals. That’s what we did.

“There is not enough credit given to attacking coaches. It’s a lot easier to keep a clean sheet than it is to try and be on the front foot and score goals.”

Switching off

Jones delayed his first steps into management until his two sons reached their 20s, having seen how demanding the meticulous Martinez found the role.

Woodgate, a local Boro lad, has children aged seven and two and hopes to use them as a way of switching off from the pressures of management.

“If we’ve won game or we’ve lost one game let’s see how I deal with it then but I think it’s important to do that as a father as well,” he said.

“I want to see my kids growing up, I want to see them doing these nice things like learning to ride a bike or making Rice Krispy cakes or ice lollies, I think that’s important to have that release.”