EVERTON MAY SELL STONES

ROBERTO MARTINEZ would consider selling John Stones next summer but only if he feels Everton would reap long-term benefits. Everton stood up to fierce pressure from Chelsea, who they face at Goodison Park this lunchtime, during the last transfer window and rebuffed four bids for the England international, with the last one being more than £36million. Manager Martinez holds Stones in such regard that he believes the 21-year-old could become one of the ‘greatest defenders’ that England has produced and that is why he would not consider letting him go last month, even after he handed in a transfer request. But Martinez is also pragmatic. He stockpiled funds from the sales of Marouane Fellaini in the summer of 2013 to buy Romelu Lukaku for £28million 12 months ago and if a future deal for Stones would help enhance Everton’s squad, he would look at it. ‘We have very young players ready to kick on and it was about keeping that core,’ said Martinez. ‘But you go from window to window and you say “OK, will we finish as a stronger squad?”. You assess. Players have moments of form, you look at ages. If we’d lost John Stones at that stage it would have been impossible for us to bring in a player of the same level. ‘I’ve said before that every football club is bigger than any player but there is always a right moment and a wrong moment and for us to have our season we needed to have John — the same way that we needed Lukaku, Kevin Mirallas and James McCarthy.’