Sunday 15 January 2017 11:15, UK
Ahead of John Stones’ return to Everton with Manchester City, the young defender finds his progress under scrutiny once more. Is Pep Guardiola really the right man to oversee his development? Adam Bate argues that Stones is in safe hands…
It was supposed to be the perfect match. Pep Guardiola, the most celebrated coach of his generation. John Stones, English football's great defensive hope. A ball-playing defender from Barnsley now set to be schooled in a more sophisticated style of play.
Hopes had been pinned and Stones became a totem. Glenn Hoddle and Paul Scholes might have been mistreated by a country's misguided priorities but this would be different. Time to reimagine and reinvent the English defender. The personification of a better way.
So it was a little underwhelming to see Stones sat on the bench for Manchester City's recent wins over Watford, Arsenal and Burnley. It is not that the £47.5m man is taking time to settle. It's that Guardiola's selections suggest he might actually prefer Aleksandar Kolarov.
"I love him a lot," insisted the manager upon dropping the 22-year-old from the team. "He is a really nice guy." But the team sheets tell the story. And the criticism that occasionally wafted his way while in an Everton shirt has become rather more fierce for Stones.
Suddenly he is at the eye of the storm and this has become more than a debate about his ability. As with his manager, the conversation quickly morphs into a referendum on the success or failure of an entire football philosophy. Meanwhile, the mistakes mount up.
There was the sloppy pass across his own box against Southampton that resulted in Nathan Redmond's goal. The game ended in a draw. Then there was the error against Leicester, another loose ball that Jamie Vardy latched upon to score the Foxes' fourth in a 4-2 defeat.
According to Opta, that particular mistake took Stones to six such errors leading directly to goals over the past three Premier League seasons. It's not a huge number. Only six since August 2014. But it is more than any other outfield player in the country during that period.
The perceived lack of progress is a concern. Flaws were to be ironed out not overlooked. So as time passes the emphasis shifts and a new question emerges. Is Guardiola really the man to make Stones better or, like Roberto Martinez, will he merely indulge the excess errors?
"I'd teach him how to defend." That was the typical bullish verdict of Sam Allardyce when entertaining the prospect of getting his hands on the young defender back in the spring. Such sentiment found a receptive audience but the prospect proved only fleeting.
Gareth Southgate is likely to take a calmer approach to the player's development. He is a long-time admirer of a player he sees as the heir to Rio Ferdinand. "He's as composed as any young defender I've seen," Southgate told the reporters at St George's Park back in 2015.
But he knows the importance of pure defending too. The need to get stuck in and to put the foot through the ball as well as on it. As Stones once said, to fuse the best bits of Ferdinand and John Terry. "That'll be the bit now that we want to keep pushing," added Southgate.
Will Stones ever get that push? Some are beginning to fear not. When Hoddle himself suggested recently that this could be the problem, even English football's self-appointed high priest of 'playing the right way' looked to have lost a little faith.
But perhaps that is to misunderstand Guardiola's methods. It is a myth that he does not focus on defending. "Attack is more based on innate talent," he once said. "Defence is about the work you put into it. Defensive strategy is absolutely essential if I want to attack a lot."
For Guardiola, everything is about the build-up play. In that sense, defence is his priority. At Bayern Munich, Javi Martinez recalls being shown 200 videos. "We've done so much tactical work," he said. "When to move out with the ball, when to mark, where to position myself."
Stones will not be left wanting for attention and everything will have a purpose. Guardiola believes that by circulating the ball it is the opposition's shape that is destabilised, tiring them out and leaving his own side less susceptible to the counter-attack.
He has the right defender to do this. Over the past three years, Stones boasts the best passing accuracy of any centre-back still starting regularly in the Premier League and his numbers are improving. But it is the errors that people remember. Until they stop.
"I like working with John a lot because he tries to improve," said Guardiola when speaking about Stones in November. "He realises his mistakes, he knows he can be better. He's got a special quality that is difficult to find in players of his age. He is not afraid to play."
Rather than inhibiting the player, Guardiola remains determined to encourage him. He has repeatedly stressed the need for patience because Stones is unaccustomed to playing every three days and coping with the concentration demands that this entails.
"He's young, he has to improve, but he's open and he has a lot of personality. When you play in the big teams, the character is there. All the big clubs buy huge players. All of them have quality, the difference is their personality, how they react in the bad moments."
He's young, he has to improve, but he's open and he has a lot of personality. John is a big player, I don't have doubts about that.
Guardiola added: "John is a big player, I don't have doubts about that." And yet, the number of doubters are increasing. Stones needs to rise to the challenge and for everyone to realise that the biggest mistake would not be a careless pass against Leicester or Southampton.
The biggest mistake would be to believe that Guardiola's so-called zealotry is hampering this young player's progress. The best way for Stones to become the very best defender he can be is surely to trust in Guardiola. There is still time for this to be the perfect match.
