Zaha is lightening and I don’t think there’s a centre half in the country could match him stride for stride. Stones was always in trouble after the right back got caught out of position. He maybe hesitated a little but I think VAR is making defenders much more cautious. I don’t think all the blame can be heaped onto his shoulders, Cancelo nowhere and Fernandinho was flat footed facing his own goal. City should have been out of sight by that point.
He does seem to have lost his way a bit but the media have definitely got their teeth into him. Contrast with Maguire who is no better but gets rave reviews. Maybe it's time for John to do a Harry and Stexit to Europe for a spell.
I'm biased about Stones for obvious reasons but I really do think the sports media have it in for him. I can't think of a reason either aside from his split with his long term girlfriend.
I don't think he's anywhere near as good as people thought he was going to be. He's still a very good footballer but not at the level he plays. At the level he plays he's poor. And I'm sorry if this takes the wind out of your sails, but I like Parky and Bird and Gough. I haven't got a thing I'm just giving an honest opinion.
Shearer certainly has, The irony of yesterday was, the highlights started with Stones hitting a cross field 30- 40 yard pass straight to his mates feet, there were also a couple of slide- rule type passes that started attacking moves off, funnily enough they were never mentioned by the commentator. Just a bit of balance out of fairness please.
He’s barely been fit to play in the last year. It’s weird how Stones was first choice ahead of Kompany for the last 3 seasons yet whenever pundits talk about City’s defensive problems they only ever seen to mention Laporte been injured & Kompany leaving. None of them mention that Stones has barely been fit either, a far bigger miss than Kompany who barring a good spell at the end of last season had barely done anything for the past 4 or 5 seasons. For me he looked the 3rd best in the league behind Van Dijk & Laporte 14 months ago. If he keeps getting constant injuries he’ll never rediscover his top form.
