LvG has this and at most the next season in charge. If he's wanting immediate success during his tenure, he'll want players who are ready than actually build for the future. Most of his signings point to this being the case.
John Stones | Everton say they will reject all bids
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Rumours that we are mulling it
http://www.express.co.uk/sport/foot...rton-John-Stones-Everton-Transfer-News-Gossip
He is better than Zouma and Terry can't play 3 games a week.
Miguel Delaney from ESPN mentioned it too.
To the point where just 10 minutes into the game he'd played Aguero onside with a horrible piece of positional play and reading of the game...but of course because Aguero didn't score, it's as if it didn't happen. When he gets a move to a top club he'll be scrutinised much more and the cracks will appear. At the moment his mistakes have been glossed over time and time again because he's everyone's favourite new English talent. Build him up and chop him down, that's the one thing the English media do best.
I don't want us using Jones as a makeweight.
Evans plus cash will be alright.
Evans plus cash will be alright.
Okay, he's not that good.
Maybe, but he isn´t, although he should play consistently right now to develop properly. The hard truth is that McNair is not ready to play as starting CB for a club as ambitous and reputable as United. Your defensive stability is right now the strongest part of your game and I don´t see you guys jeopardizing that by giving him the opportunity to grow and freedom to make mistakes. I would loan him to a team, where he would start and then evaluate his skills in one or two years.
Stones is way further in his development, very composed for a player his age and already a very wellrounded CB. If he would come to United right now, I would see him starting ahead of Blind alongside Smalling.
Blind might have the build up play to contribute a lot from the back but I´m still not sold about him being first choice vs. top opposition. There will be opponents, which won´t be stopped by the solid cover your compact midfield and defensively excellent partner provides. Teams who will target his less than ideal positional play and weakness in the air.
Jones is a player with an amazing attitude and lots of potential (especially as ball playing CB), which was sadly hindered by many injuries. I would say that he probably already lost two years of development by now, although I believe he could catch that up if he would finally get a proper run of games. As it stands now, his positional play is similar a worry as for Blind. He had a lot of excellent tackles, which brought him praise on here, but were infact recovery actions for his own mistakes.
Having said all that, I don´t think that Stones is the right target for United right now, especially for that price. He might be an overall upgrade to Blind, Jones and McNair right now, but I would rather see them going for a player with more experience and the ability to teach and lead this fairly young back line. I think that all of them would benefit for having such a player in the team.
Its going to happen
Yep. Same way Jones was lauded as the next big thing? The next John Terry, United & England captain and the new Duncan Edwards. He's still just 23 but he's not even close to being any of that (Edwards comparisons mean nothing to me though). Jones was probably hyped even more than Stones when we got him and beat Chelsea and our other competitors to his signature
You're just helping me drive my point home. How much better would McNair look turning up for another PL team though? Would Stones have got this far if he was a United player? You think he'd have usurped Jones and Smalling? There's no way of knowing, but you'll always admire what other teams have.
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He has potential but that's all it is at the moment, the prices mentioned are a bit ridiculous.
I think Stones would have cemented a place in the side rather than LVG using Blind, regardless of the left footed CB bollocks that is reported.
Good post.
He's clearly a very talented young player, but he's still very very raw. And thats the last thing we need at centre back right now. We've got 4 young-ish centre backs, plus Blind trying to learn a new position, we don't have room for another defender with 'potential'. Right player, wrong time, sort of situation.
Do people have a problem agreeing that Stones < Jones ?
I think Stones is a better player than Jones personally. They're both pretty good mind, but if I had to choose just one to complement Smalling for the next few years, it'd definitely be Stones.
He'd be starting before Blind/Mcnair/Blackett first of all i think. He had an unfortunate ankle injury that left him injured for 10ish weeks but other than that he doesn't really pick up the annoying niggles that Jones and Smalling have in the past. Regardless of whether you think Jones or Stones is better, i think Stones would show that he was good enough and therefore Jones would find it hard to get back into the side again following injury. FWIW i think that Smalling is the best out of them all regarding current ability.
Could easily argue that Jones is currently better.
Stones is better on the ball which could see a manager like LVG favouring him though.
Still, if you sign Stones then you're not really signing him for what he is right now, you're signing him for what he will become. In terms of potential Stones > Jones, definitely.
You can't definitely say that when Stones has done exactly nothing yet in the grand scheme of things in his still young career. People were praising Jones to the high heavens before he signed for United. What happened? What will happen to Stones after he signs for a big team and struggles to deliver in his first season? Im seeing (not you) some of the same people who used to lavish Jones with ridiculous praise now saying that Stones is a better player. English flavor of the day probably
That depends how you define potential in this case. If we go by likelihood to reach a high level, then yes, Stones is ahead there because he did not suffer as much injuries. However, if the deciding factor is personal ceiling, it becomes way more complicated.
Phil Jones showed as 19 or 20 year old perfomances, which were downright amazing for that age, some of them even in high pressure situations. The central question for him is, how much his injuries have impacted his potential and can he get into a place where can stay largely injury free for a whole season. Thats incredibly hard to answer even for experts of the game let alone from the outside. If van Gaal and his staff believe in that, then there is little reason to buy Stones despite his undoubted potential.
Jones was one of the few English players, where the hype was for the most part actually justified. Without his injuries there was a high chance of him becoming world class one day. Stones has similar potential, but not necessarily more of that.
Starting tonight apparently.
EDIT: Confirmed.
EDIT: Confirmed.
When I said definitely I meant he definitely is in my opinion. We're speculating about players' potential here, it's all opinion.
I've seen quite a lot of Stones and I think he's the most talented young English CB I've seen since Rio. I hadn't seen that much of Jones before we signed him but, from all that we've seen since, I think Stones is more likely to reach the top from this point than he is.
Obviously we have no idea what will happen in the future, he could well fail to develop. You can't really do much about that when you're buying players based on potential though, it happens.
evans + cash
I mostly meant the first definition. The level of theoretical potential each player could possibly have is a lot less relevant than the likelihood of them actually fulfilling it. Jones might have had as much promise as Stones at one point but as is Stones is the smarter bet to reach the top.
The reason I started supporting you guys as my favourite premier league team was your strong British core - would love you to sign stones - it's clear he will be the next best English cb...
Martinez not giving anything away in the interview. All he's said is that having a strong cb partnership is important when asked if Stones is in the right frame of mind. Might get a bit more out of him after the game. Wonder what Stones will do if he scores.
Might not be "in the right frame of mind" tonight it seems..
I'll leave this here...
Probably thought it was going wide, shite defending, wouldn't read anything else into it.
Oh it doesn't make him suddenly crap or anything - just a possible indication of where his head/focus is at right now.
Indeed! Was just saying that i don't think that it was intentional like some people would say.
Must be HUGE potential if hes going to go for about 40 mill.
I think he'll make it and be a big hit for Chelsea.
The price is mostly inflated because he's English.
Wasn't too good today vs Barnsley from what i saw and read.
Jones would probably get slaughtered on here for anything similar.
Jones would probably get slaughtered on here for anything similar.
Apart from the mistake shown above he was pretty solid actually. You wouldn't have thought he was a man who had just handed in a transfer request as he was giving his utmost for the team.
Nevertheless, I really want us to give it a shot. Evans and money going in the opposite direction please!
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