CITY Cultured Stones has to show Pep ugly side

WHEN John Stones sat in a Sky Sports studio in December, he was in the final stages of recovery from a hamstring injury.

He’d been sidelined for two weeks and City’s medical team had set a return date for the New Year.

Discussing how ‘demanding’ Pep Guardiola had improved him as both a player and a person, he was developing into every bit the £47.5m centre-back City had lured from Everton.

Always gifted on the ball, he had discovered a consistency of performance that had been an issue at both Goodison Park and his first season at the Etihad. The silly mistakes or lapses in concentration had been ironed out.

Within the club he was being earmarked as a future captain.

Wind the clock forward five months and Stones is now the subject of speculation about his future - his position at the Blues in doubt.

City sources insist there are no plans to sell the England international this summer - but stories linking him with a move away came as no surprise.

Just three Premier League starts since the turn of the year tell its own story. There have been injury issues concussion on England duty and his current adductor problem. But the issues run deeper.

Guardiola has increasingly placed his faith in the dramatically-improved Nicolas Otamendi and fit-again Vincent Kompany in the second half of the campaign.

They started alongside each other in the Carabao Cup final, Champions League first legs against Basel and Liverpool - and the derby. Stones, meanwhile, has watched on. It is peculiar given the 23-year-old is largely considered the most Guardiola of all City’s centre-backs.

A cultured player, who has been encouraged to develop those qualities in a way he never was at Everton.

But there is a crucial point often overlooked in Guardiola’s pursuit of pure football. Sources say the City manager wants Stones to improve on the uglier side of the game too.

It’s notable Otamendi has become such a dependable figure when the Argentine, himself, looked like the odd man out.

Both he and Kompany are masters of defending - throwing their bodies in the line of fire, putting their heads where it hurts.

Much has been made of Otamendi’s phenomenal passing statistics, but it has been a case of Guardiola adding that to his game to mould him into a defender he can work with.

Stones is fine on the ball, but even Guardiola acknowledges there are times when the basics are fundamental. Ederson, too, has been told there is a right time and a wrong time to be a playmaking goalkeeper.

Guardiola has impressed that upon the Brazilian, despite his outstanding form in his debut season at the Etihad.

Stones’ prolonged absence has only pointed to ongoing issues over his ability to follow his manager’s orders.

The speed with which City attempted to quash doubts about his future should serve as encouragement - even if his lack of game-time is a concern for England ahead of the World Cup.

Pairing up with Guardiola was supposed to see him blossom.

Instead, he finds himself third or even fourth choice in the pecking order at the Etihad.

With talk that City could enter the market for yet another centre-back refusing to go away - it could get worse still.