England rugby head coach Eddie Jones paid a visit to Manchester United

England rugby head coach Eddie Jones paid a visit to Manchester United’s AON complex on Thursday to watch training and talk to staff.

The 61-year-old has a good relationship with United coaches and has spoken openly about his love for football. He chatted with manager Ole Gunnar Solskjaer and was an interested spectator as United’s players were put through their paces.

Solskjaer joked that football was becoming more like rugby after being upset by a number of challenges from Southampton players last weekend but the contact on show at Carrington was very tame compared to what Jones is used to.

Jones arrived just after 8am and met up with United’s analysis operations manager Andrew Meredith, a fellow Australian, who won Olympic gold with Germany at hockey and previously worked with Australia’s national football side and St Pauli in the German Bundesliga.

Jones knows United’s staff well having visited previously and spent time with them earlier this summer at England rugby training HQ Pennyhill Park where United held a pre-season training camp.

United’s website spoke to Jones during their time at Pennyhill.

‘I’m always interested in how the training is organised, and what is the objective of the training, and then what are the coaches doing to make sure that objective is met,’ he said.

‘So it’s more about the movement and the objective of the session.

‘I think we’re always learning. I think we learn more off you guys. But they’re both invasion sports; they’re both about combinations. At any time on the field there are four or five players that are crucial to that piece of play, and the way they interact and then the ability of the rest of the team to anticipate what’s going to happen is just so important.’

Jones is the second high profile visitor to Carrington this week after England manager Gareth Southgate dropped in on Monday.