City fans writing John Stones off too early?

[peoffrey]

An experienced centre half is a must. Kompany was never replaced and is the number one reason that we’ve not retained the Premier League.

 

[Sky Blue]

Classic centre half pairings compliment each other very well. As said, Stones and Laporte don’t seem to do that.

We need more of "Hair looks nice today, John"....

 

[Eccles Blue]

I just hope that tonight JohnBoy proves his doubters wrong!

I like Stones and am sure he’ll do the job for us.

Come on City. The Boys in Blue never give in, they fight to the end. :-)

 

[toffee balls]

Good luck tonight and going forward Stonesy , I think you’re gonna need it.

 

[Shaelumstash]

Interesting.
Had a quick butcher‘s - only stat I could find was one from the BBC (from after Laporte got injured in August/September 2019, Premier League only). They have our win % with Stones and Laporte at 73% from 15 games, which is notably down on Laporte and Kompany (91%) and Laporte and Otamendi (88%).
I actually rate Stones and agree with a lot of the original post. I‘m just not sure about the Stones-Laporte partnership - think they‘re both better suited to playing alongside someone a bit more aggressive.

I’m not sure you can hold the centre back pairing solely responsible for the win percentage?

It’s completely outside of their control if we draw 0-0 and our forwards have an off day.

A better gauge of how well a centre back pairing works is the amount of goals they concede and clean sheets.

The Stones and Laporte partnership concedes on average 0.6 per game, compared to 0.5 for Laporte and Kompany.

Stones and Laporte has the best clean sheet ratio out of any of our centre back pairings with 60%, compared with 45% for Laporte and Kompany.

https://www.skysports.com/football/...r-citys-centre-backs-will-cost-them-the-title

 

[OrigamiNinja]

Tonight is a terrible game to be able to judge him on. City hammering Newcastle at home has become quite the norm. If that happens again and Stones has very little to do, other than playing 5 yard passes to the CDM, many will be on here telling all and sundry 'he's back'.

He has never had any issues in games like this. His issues firstly come with not being able to get out on the pitch with any regularity and secondly an inability to defend with any consistency when called upon.

Tonight won't tell us anything we don't already know about Stones. We need to see how he performs in big games say an FA Cup SF, or a CL game against Madrid. Unfortunately, I don't want him anywhere near the starting XI in those fixtures.

His time here is over. He must be replaced in the Summer.

 

[DTKOAG]

I bet Andy Carroll is relishing the thought as i type.

 

[vin]

To be fair he may have mental health issues - to say weak as piss is a bit low.
He genuinely may not like people like Pep barking at him every game and people shouting at him.
I certainly wouldn't.

Arguably he is weak mentally but may have his own issues (completely get that). I was referring to him being weak physically - gets bullied off the ball way too easy.

 

[waspish]

When he has a run of games you can see how good he is the main problem since at City is he gets injured just when he is at his best them out for months.

 

[Goats left knee]

Hard not to give up on him, soft as they come. Pretty much 4 years ago we signed him.