Thought he'd be staying with Vinny gone and maybe no Maguire, but I think he knows he'll never be first choice under Pep due to his weaknesses.
Said this a while back but been a great servant to the club and really stepped up 2 seasons ago during the Centurion season where he got rid of those mind scratching mistakes against most sides and became reliably one of our best defenders. When Laporte arrived the writing was on the wall and Pep always wants a left footed CB for those long balls to switch it to the other flank. Also, Stones was one of "the chosen" so Pep was always going to be more invested in developing him.
Was against Liverpool I believe I recall where you could still see he couldn't quite hack it against the press, even if he is a decent passer for a centre half, he's no Laporte or Stones (when he's on).
No way we are in for Maguire at the fees quoted.
Some mysterious CB we aren't thinking of (I read Ahsan's claim on Twitter) is probably lurking, and Bournemouth will be sweating about losing Ake a lot more now. However, I can't see us going in with Ake and Garcia as the backups as that leaves us very thin on size and strength at the position for the season which spells trouble against the British "2nd balls" style that Pep talks about 24/7 as a concern.