Stones praises Southgate ‘reassurance’ after difficult period

Jason Soutar
John Stones shakes hands with Gareth Southgate

Manchester City defender John Stones has revealed that “reassurance” from England boss Gareth Southgate helped him get through his difficult start to the season.

Stones has struggled for game time this term under Pep Guardiola, despite forming a wonderful partnership with Ruben Dias in 2020/21 in the heart of the City defence.

He has only played 90 minutes of a match on three occasions in 21/22, but started and finished Saturday’s Manchester derby due to Aymeric Laporte’s suspension.


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Stones had been included in both of the Three Lions’ squads prior to his first appearance of the campaign, surprisingly.

Asked if he had spoken to Southgate during his time out of the City line-up, the 27-year-old told BBC Radio 5 Live: “I think it was maybe last camp or the camp before that, we spoke about it.

“It was almost a bit of a reassurance, or things that I already knew and was already thinking, but just to ‘stick with it and you’ll get your time’.

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

Stones admits he feels good after helping City keep a clean sheet at Manchester United, and emphasised that he had to remain patient when hoping to break back into City’s starting XI.

“I feel really good,” he said. “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 the respect of me coming back.

“Both times I think we had a game on a Wednesday and then I was ready on a Thursday 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 good games, over recent weeks anyway, especially at the weekend, and happy to be back here (with England), yeah.”