Southgate ‘reassurance’ helped Stones through difficult period

John Stones played more for England than Manchester City during a challenging start to the season he overcame with the help of reassurance from Gareth Southgate.

The Three Lions boss has largely stuck with the group that reached the Euro 2020 final for the autumn World Cup qualifiers, despite questions over some players’ form and game time.

Stones has been one of the mainnamesinthelatterbracket as Pep Guardiola trusted City’s other centre-backs duringaninjury-interruptedstart to the campaign for the England international.

The 27-year-old won four England caps across two international camps despite not playing a minute at club level, but the defender has turned a corner in the last month.

“I feel really good,” Stones said,havingstartedasCitywon 2-0 at rivals United .

“I knew I had to be patient from the start of the season with two really annoying injuries that came at a bad time in therespectofmecomingback.

“Both times I think we had a game on a Wednesday and thenIwasreadyonaThursday to train again, then we have a game on a Saturday or Sunday or whenever it might be.

“There just wasn’t that amount of time to get back and obviously the team were playing well. I just knew I had to be patient and wait for my opportunity again.

“I did that and had a few goodgames,overrecentweeks anyway,especiallyattheweekend,andhappytobebackhere (with England), yeah.”

Asked if he had spoken to Southgate during his time out of the City line-up, Stones told BBCRadio5Live:“Ithinkitwas maybe last camp or the camp before that, we spoke about it.

“Itwasalmostabitofareassurance,orthingsthatIalready knew and was already thinking,butjustto‘stickwithitand you’ll get your time’.

“I think sometimes when you’re not playing you know whyyou’renotplayingbecause of errors or bad form or whatever it might be and I knew it wasn’t anything like that.”

The focus for now is keeping England on the right path, with World Cup qualification tantalisingly close ahead of matches against Albania and San Marino.

“The last game we played against Albania wasn’t an easy onebyanystretch,”Stonesadded. “They caused us problems, so we never go into any game showing the team no respect.

“We give respect to every team and especially when there is so much on the line for us.”