Case for the defence
OLIVER HOLT’S EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW WITH JOHN STONES
STONES ON GUARDIOLA . . .
The gaffer is the perfect manager for me. He has helped me tremendously
Stones on why he dislikes that ‘cultured label, dealing with criticism and how Barnsley taught him the Barcelona way
IT IS A TRIBUTE to the talent of John Stones that he represents something more than a club. Stones stands for a philosophy. He represents the idea that an English centre- half can be cultured and elegant. He represents the idea that English footballers can develop the technique and the grace t o stand alongside t he best in Europe.
He is a battlefield, too. English audiences still grow nervous when defenders try to play. ‘Get rid of it,’ is still the cry most often heard when a centre-half gets the ball. It is our England curse, one of the things that holds us back and something coaches are trying to change.
Some people lost faith in Stones last season when his form dipped. Some said he represented a failed experiment. They laughed at the idea City paid nearly £50 million for him from Everton. They are not laughing so much any more. Stones dealt with his uncertainties and learned from them. This season, he looks more assured.
He still represents the hope that things can progress and that our football is evolving and that one day maybe an England team will be able to play the ball out from the back with confidence rather than looking as if they are merely waiting for the inevitable moment when they have to lump it long. And in that way, he represents the most important thing of all: change.
Stones, 23, sits at a table in an office at Manchester City’s academy and smiles at all that. He knows that words don’t mean much. He has distilled his football life down to making better decisions about when to play the ball and when to hit it into Row Z. He plays as if there are diamonds on the soles of his shoes but he exudes humility and modesty.
I ask him if he has blown all his money on fast women and fancy cars and he grins again and shakes his head. ‘I’m from Yorkshire,’ he says.
Stones does not conform to stereotypes. I bowl a few around in that room and Stones listens patiently. I ask him if he models himself on a particular player, expecting him to say Rio Ferdinand. He knew that was coming.
‘There isn’t really anyone I modelled myself on,’ he says. ‘Everyone assumes it was Rio. I did watch Rio and loved how he played but John Terry did it, too, and didn’t get the credit for it. I was such a big football fan in general, I just watched as many games as I could and I picked up things from every game.’
I say he must have stood out like a sore thumb as a kid, an elegant player like him, straight-backed and graceful, stroking the ball around on muddy northern pitches.
Stones explodes that one straight away. He wasn’t born playing like a young Franco Baresi. He was made in Barnsley. He was made on the training pitches that ring Oakwell. He didn’t know it then but t hat was where t hey started preparing him to play for Pep Guardiola.
‘Part of what you say is right,’ says Stones. ‘I definitely played on a lot of muddy northern pitches. But it was also there, in the youth teams at Barnsley, when I was first taught to express myself as a defender by my coaches, Ronnie Branson and Mark Burton.
‘I’d be 13 or 14 and Ronnie and Mark loved how Barcelona played and they tried to bring that to our youth team. I am massively biased but I think our youth team was brilliant.
‘ We did have those aspects and principles of how Barcelona played: splitting wide from goal kicks, trying to play out, keeping the ball on the deck, all those fundamental things that they researched and embedded into all of us.
‘I loved it there. I was attached to the club from six or seven. You have all the pitches around the stadium itself so you are always looking at where you want to get to.
‘ When I played for Ronnie and Mark, I was in the team environment of knowing how to play that Barcelona-style system. It was a collective thing and when you are all on the same page, it is so much easier.
‘There was no question of anybody playing it long to a big target man up top. So I suppose what the coaches did there on those pitches around Oakwell went against the stereotype. Because of that grounding, my philosophy is to keep the ball, keep possession. Watching the best teams in the Champions League from being a young boy and seeing how they played only reinforced that.
‘It’s all I’ve ever done. From my youth team all the way through, I was encouraged to play that way by Keith Hill when I was at Barnsley, and then Roberto Martinez at Everton, through to Gareth Southgate when he was in charge of the England Under-21s.
‘When I first got into the full England squad under Roy Hodgson, he always gave me praise for doing it and wanted to steer me down the right path of when to do it. And there’s not a better manager in the world than the one here at Manchester City. That’s why I wanted to come and work with him and improve.
‘A lot of the big teams play football all the way through from the back, even the keeper can, and they have won so many major trophies and I don’t think it’s a secret that the top teams do that and it’s successful.
‘Everyone calls football the beautiful game and everyone loves it for that reason. Trying to play that way at Manchester City and not be that typical English team any more is a step in the right direction. I’m a big fan of it.
‘Taking it into Champions League games and the big games in the season is only going to benefit the team and me as a player. You have to have a lot of trust in your team-mates and have the confidence to do it.
‘The close season and the start of this season has taken me to the next level of understanding the game more. Knowing the basics of when to play the ball out and when not to is a fine margin.’
City, who thrashed Crystal Palace 5-0 yesterday, have made a brilliant start to the season and even if the scoring feats of Sergio Aguero and Gabriel Jesus, and the promptings of Kevin De Bruyne have grabbed most of the headlines, it has not gone unnoticed that City’s defence looks stronger, too.
City’s attack has never been the problem since Guardiola arrived in July 2016. But last season, the back line was the team’s Achilles heel.
Stones made mistakes in early games. A couple of careless backpasses were punished by the opposition and the criticism rained down. Guardiola never lost faith in him, though. He backed him to the hilt.
‘John has more personality than all of us in this room,’ said Guardiola last March, ‘more balls than everyone here. Under pressure people criticise him. I am delighted to have John with all the huge amount of mistakes. I love him.
‘I love these kind of guys with this personality. It is not easy to play central defender with this manager. It’s not easy. Other managers — defend there, head there, long balls, channel, channel. You have to defend 40 metres behind and make the build up so it is not easy.’
This season, though, Stones is making it look easy. Stones will not say this because he has too much respect for the full backs who have been supplanted but it helps that Guardiola bought replacements of the quality of Kyle Walker, Danilo and Benjamin Mendy and broke the transfer record for a goalkeeper to sign Ederson from Benfica. But
Stones has helped himself, too. He is growing up, he says. He is hungry to keep learning. And even though he is proud of being a ball-player, he is keen for that to be seen only as a part of his armoury as a defender, not the quality that defines him.
‘Every player, if they say t hey don’t ever doubt themselves, I think they would be lying,’ says Stones. ‘Everyone’s human. You can be the most confident person in the world but behind that screen, there will always be doubts.
‘When things aren’t going as well, you start questioning yourself. There were times last season when I took a step back to look at myself and thought about what I could do to i mprove. The gaffer i s the perfect manager for me to play for. He has helped me tremendously. ‘I don’t want to be known as the ball player. I want people to say that I have got that in my locker as well. But I want to be known as a defender first. That’s what I love to do: make those last-ditch blocks. When we played Feyenoord the week before last, they had a break away and an attacker was about to take a shot. I made a last-ditch block and that was as good as scoring a goal.
‘I did actually score two goals in that game, which was great because it doesn’t happen often but making that block was as much of a buzz as winning and scoring.
‘I get more satisfaction from that than drifting past someone and playing a nice pass. It’s our high as defenders. It won’t always look nice.
‘A lot of people see the good side and say, “Oh the beautiful football that John plays” but the last-ditch blocks, the interception that stops that stuff, the dirty bits that football fans love to see, they appreciate those little things and your teammates love it, too, because it relieves pressure.
‘ The gaffer here has bred the winning mentality into me, too. He doesn’t give you so much information that it floods your mind.
‘It is a fine balance where he gives the correct amount of information which is key for me because I try to keep things simple and keep a clear head going into a game. The manager expects us to give everything every day and wants us to improve. That’s what we want to do for him. We want to become winners. That’s why I came here. I wanted to play with the best and against the best and win trophies.’
Outside, the rain falls in sheets and a tram rumbles past on the opposite side of the road on its way to Ashton-under-Lyne, a short climb across the Pennines from where Stones grew up in Barnsley.
‘I won’t stop improving until I’ve finished,’ says Stones. ‘ There’s always something you can improve on whether it’s mentally, tactically, physically. To have that mindset is only going to improve you as well. I have learnt that from players like Gareth Barry at Everton. You don’t get to beat the appearance record by not coming in every day trying to improve. No shortcuts.
‘I’m still young and I feel hopefully I have got a long career ahead. You don’t want it to stop.
‘It’s not a perfect world and you can’t change things that happen on the pitch or in training or injuries, and in a strange way, that’s the beauty of it. It all adds up to make you stronger in the end.’
STONES ON MAKING MISTAKES . . .
When things aren’t going well, you start questioning yourself. I had to look at myself and try to improve