John Stones

Status
Not open for further replies.
robbie brewer said:
In one of Pep's books he talks about when he arrived at Munich how little Boateng had been taught about defending and how he defended on instinct and often made mistakes. Pep worked intensively with Boateng in the early stages and turned him into a much better defender without impacting on his ability to be a ball playing CB.
People quite rightly talk about Stones being caught in possession regularly last year. Under Pep's system when playing out from the back he likes the man in possession to have at least 2-3 passing options thus reducing the likelihood of being caught on the ball. So hopefully a few weeks coaching from Pep will hopefully allay our fears and we will see the player Pep believes he can be.
Click to expand...
And that is the intelligent kind of football people think comes naturally, well it doesn't its learned behaviour. The importance of having passing options is absolutely paramount and not something you can leave down to players natural abilities to work it out for themselves as we've had for the last 3 years.

Once players learn about tactical systems, they make it look so easy like its come about naturally, but nothing could be further from the truth and this is what separates the good coaches from the great coaches. Nothing is left to chance or for player to figure it our for themselves.
 
Neville Kneville said:
The best (young) defensive option was the kid from Bilbao.

Of course Stones isn't the biggest part of the jigsaw.

If he was, he'd be training at City now. He's English & therefore a commodity. If he wasn't English, we'd be signing someone else.

I gather you missed the cup final btw ? Or his games v City ?
Click to expand...

Personally I thought he was their best player

Opinions aye...
 
Not worth £50M. That is guaranteed 20 goal striker or dominating midfielder money. Above £50M is world beater type money. Unless, and it's a big caveat, Pep thinks that Stones is going to be the next Busquets, then I just don't see it.

The world has gone crazy because the Brits have Sky money. If the Sheikh is smart, he will continue to do it the way he is doing it with Pep now...£150M on half a team full of experience and proven youth, with possibly one marquee signing every year. Next year, this SQUAD is going to be scary good, with or without Stones, which tells me he is not worth the aggro. He is unsettled at Everton, and spent the latter part of the season on their bench and England's. Not sure how that INCREASES his value??!
 
Neville Kneville said:
I would have two great defenders who are fast as fuck if it was upto me. One would be unbeatable in the air.

Obviously in the modern game, they would have to be decent on the ball but I'd settle for 'decent'. Preferably one would be excellent on the ball if possible, but if not, just able to control it & pass it would do for me. Let the mids do the football bit. If the cbs can knock it around without fucking up & give it to the mids, but are great at defending, I recon Pep would be happy too, but unfortunately 99% of cbs are shite, so we are in for Stones, who may become something better.

But tbh thats all I recon Stones is right now, 'decent' on the ball & that's kind of why i keep commenting on this thread, because peole are continually making him out to be some kind of amazing footballer when he's actually nothing of the sort. He is a bit better than Otto (who was last years Stones, great on the ball etc, now he's suddenly fuck all because people have actually seen him) & a bit better than Mangala, who isn't as bad as people make out but is prone to suddenly shitting himself & it looks awful when he does it.

Stones on the other hand, looks completely at ease when he gives the ball away in dangerous positions, so therefore, it appears it's ok. But I recon he probably got mugged as many times last season as Otto & Mangler put together. So on the flip side, how many times did he burst forward & create a move from which Everton scored ?

I don't think we actually need Stones, I think he's a project. I think Pep fancies he can make something out of him, so fine. If he can do it, great, maybe we have a world class cb one day.

But right now, we are looking at an error prone young lad who is 'decent' but not brilliant on the ball & people are talking some right bollocks about his performances so far.

I am comfortable with us signing him though, because of Pep. If we still had Pellegrini, I think Stones would destroy our season. Under Pep, maybe he will become a big player for us.
Click to expand...

Really excellent post. P.S. Stones should be in Brazil right now, testing himself against Neymar et al. that would help him improve. But he isn't, because the world's gone mad!
 
ChicagoBlue said:
Not worth £50M. That is guaranteed 20 goal striker or dominating midfielder money. Above £50M is world beater type money. Unless, and it's a big caveat, Pep thinks that Stones is going to be the next Busquets, then I just don't see it.

The world has gone crazy because the Brits have Sky money. If the Sheikh is smart, he will continue to do it the way he is doing it with Pep now...£150M on half a team full of experience and proven youth, with possibly one marquee signing every year. Next year, this SQUAD is going to be scary good, with or without Stones, which tells me he is not worth the aggro. He is unsettled at Everton, and spent the latter part of the season on their bench and England's. Not sure how that INCREASES his value??!
Click to expand...
Have you been living under a rock for the past 2 years? The market has change a lot,
 
Values are impossible to judge now. Its like quantitative easing. The extra money from tv has made every club have more money, but its worth is now less. 1 mill 2 years back is like 2 mill now. Therefore its impossible to compare values like for like. To do this properly wed need to look at percentages of budgets or some such and that would be very dull
 
Dax777 said:
He was. And it wasn't even close.
Click to expand...

He was fucking shocking on both goals & it was a cup final!

A CUP FINAL!

But perhaps he knocked some nice passes around & tried to bring the ball out, so who cares ? There's always next year & these things happen.

Actually IT WAS A SEMI FINAL!

But same thing ;)
 
Last edited:
Status
Not open for further replies.
Unread Posts

Don't have an account? Register now and see fewer ads!

SIGN UP
Back
Top
✖
  AdBlock Detected
Bluemoon relies on advertising to pay our hosting fees. Please support the site by disabling your ad blocking software to help keep the forum sustainable. Thanks.