Everton’s defensive ace John Stones has been a player who has interested Manchester City’s new boss Pep Guardiola. Guardiola is an admirer of the 22-year-old defender and is reportedly keen to bring the player to the Etihad. There have been reports of Manchester City already in talks with Everton so things are moving on that front. While, Stones is a player who will suit Guardiola’s style of building attacks from the back due to having some very good ability on the ball and intelligence, he can opt to stay another year at Everton before moving to a bigger challenge.
When Roberto Martinez was fired even before the 2015/16 season was over, Everton were in real trouble. The club was in a bad shape, the club once again loitered below the top half and there was a real sense of disappointment all around the stadium which consolidated the fact that the club actually went backwards instead of progressing under Martinez, especially after his wonderful debut season. John Stones was one of the few players who played well during that period but after a good start last season even the defender struggled a bit with his performances as his teammates continued to make a flurry of individual errors leaking goals at the back.
The total scenario was a mess and very rightly so when it was heard that new boss Pep Guardiola would like to sign the defender, everybody agreed to the fact that a move away from Goodison would be a sensible move for him to take his career forward. However, with the appointment of Ronald Koeman, the trio of Moshiri, Kenwright and Woods did do something which was badly needed and that is changing the whole scenario. After having done a remarkable job at Southampton and proving himself under very difficult circumstances, the appointment of the new manager has brought a sense of big relief and hope for the fans as well as the players of Everton FC. There’s a new project underway at Goodison and suddenly the whole perspective about the future of Stones has changed again.
Ronald Koeman is not only the ideal man to turn things around at the Blue half of Merseyside, he can also be the ideal man for John Stones to develop his game. The 53-year-old Dutch manager is still the highest scoring defender of all time, a record which he set during his playing days and looks not likely to be broken anytime soon. Koeman was revered for his ability on the ball, his vision and intelligence and he can groom Stones into being a real world class defender which would benefit the player as well as the England national team. John Stones can thus stay at Everton for sure and if he does then he would be giving himself the opportunity to learn from a real master defender and will definitely be improving under him in the future.
