John Stones

Bubz27 said:
By the time Rio came to United he'd had champions league experience and played in a world cup iirc. And he was a couple years older than Stones is now.
Who knows with that level of experience what Stones could be like.
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Im not referring to Stones mate but to the classical ball playing defenders and the excuses that are made for them because they 'cant' or are not willing to defend
 
Adisa said:
Sound like a broken record but will still keep saying it. Laporte is the better defender, same age and will be a lot cheaper.
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I agree 100%. For a young guy Laporte has played a massive amount of first team games. He is head and shoulders above Stones at the moment and he is not having a particularly good season by his standards either
 
At the moment anyone buying him for the reported 50m price tag would be paying around 30m for his passport. He needs to get far away from Martinez for the good of his defensive development, but the way he's playing that's only happening if Everton sack Martinez (which they probably should be seriously considering, 11 wins in his last 50 games with that team is pretty awful).
 
devilish said:
Im not referring to Stones mate but to the classical ball playing defenders and the excuses that are made for them because they 'cant' or are not willing to defend
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Oh yeah, fair enough. In that case I totally agree. The ball playing part should be secondary to the actual defending. Otherwise we'd end up with more 'defenders' like David Luiz.
 
Bubz27 said:
Oh yeah, fair enough. In that case I totally agree. The ball playing part should be secondary to the actual defending. Otherwise we'd end up with more 'defenders' like David Luiz.
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Agreed, but sadly it looks like that's the way football is going. The absolute obsession with ball playing centre backs is forcing out the old school defensive style, to the obvious detriment of all round defensive ability.

It's now got to the stage where it's genuinely difficult to think of five top class centre backs in the world. Only 7 or 8 years ago we had two at United alone.
 
mufcwarm92 said:
Agreed, but sadly it looks like that's the way football is going. The absolute obsession with ball playing centre backs is forcing out the old school defensive style, to the obvious detriment of all round defensive ability.

It's now got to the stage where it's genuinely difficult to think of five top class centre backs in the world. Only 7 or 8 years ago we had two at United alone.
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Rio and Vidic as a defensive duo were heads and shoulders above all other duos in Europe at the time though. I genuinely believe they were THE best two defenders in the world for a while.
 
mufcwarm92 said:
Agreed, but sadly it looks like that's the way football is going. The absolute obsession with ball playing centre backs is forcing out the old school defensive style, to the obvious detriment of all round defensive ability.

It's now got to the stage where it's genuinely difficult to think of five top class centre backs in the world. Only 7 or 8 years ago we had two at United alone.
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Agree with everything you are saying. I couldn't care less if my CB can make a 40 yard pass. I want him to be able to head the ball properly, tackle properly, mark someone properly at set pieces. The basics of defending. If he can pass the ball and run out of defence with the ball that is the bonus. It shouldn't be the first priority. Then they wonder why teams concede so many goals when most of their defenders are wannabe wingers and midfielders. The pressure they are putting their goalkeepers under is ridiculous.
 
Sarni said:
Rio and Vidic as a defensive duo were heads and shoulders above all other duos in Europe at the time though. I genuinely believe they were THE best two defenders in the world for a while.
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That's definitely a fair point and I wouldn't disagree, but then you also had the likes of Puyol, Nesta, Terry and Carvalho in their pomp. Those six on their 2006-08 form must be better than any defender around today.
 
mufcwarm92 said:
That's definitely a fair point and I wouldn't disagree, but then you also had the likes of Puyol, Nesta, Terry and Carvalho in their pomp. Those six on their 2006-08 form must be better than any defender around today.
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Definitely, now you could have a case for players like Ramos or Boateng being in top 5 and they probably are and none of them are really truly great. This goes for all defenders today. I think Pique in top form is the best right now.
 
His arrogance is making me dislike him more and more each game. Martinez has to take a bit of the blame though. You see a young defender making the same mistakes and you encourage him to carry on playing the same way and not tell him to go back to basics. Terrible management. I'm still confident he will turn out great, he'd probably have a great Euros in a Roy Hodgson set up but Everton would be crazy to reject 50 million.
 
I've heard this thing about his arrogance come up a lot, where do people get this from? Surely you can't be basing it off purely his way of playing, as this is obviously partly down to Martinez, who is happy to let him make errors to continues playing the way he does, which in turn works in the way Martinez wants to play.....even if it is underachieving massively for Everton, unless your name is Lukaku or Barkley, who are happily statpadding.
 
Dropped the last 2 games along with Howard and we have 2 cleansheets. He should be worried.
 
Eurgh. I'd honestly much prefer so so many options. Koulibaly, Marquinhos, Dragovic, Maksimovic, Manolas etc...
 
Hopefully under a better manager he proves he's a good defensively.

Not sure we need to spend a huge fee on a CB, though. Given Sanches will cost a fair bit, we need to spend boatloads on our attack.
 
The talent is there, but needs some guidance. Everton will fleece us though, and there are just as good other options out there.
 
Ace of Spades said:
The talent is there, but needs some guidance. Everton will fleece us though, and there are just as good other options out there.
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My only worry is that we need about 3-4 attacking players. Can't see us spending that much on attack, midfield (Sanchez) and defence (Stones).

I'm hoping we go all out to invest in attack, and find a few good bargains on our defence and other areas.
 
Not surprising at all, given he was Jose's top target last summer. Personally don't rate him at all and think he's a lot overrated, but if anyone can improve his defensive side then it's Jose, plus it looks like managers like Guardiola etc do also rate him, so it might be we are not seeing something which they are.
 
KM said:
Not surprising at all, given he was Jose's top target last summer. Personally don't rate him at all and think he's a lot overrated, but if anyone can improve his defensive side then it's Jose, plus it looks like managers like Guardiola etc do also rate him, so it might be we are not seeing something which they are.
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SAF and Capello rated Jones to ridiculous levels. The former linked him with Edwards the latter to Baresi. In an authoritarian regime they would be probably shot for that.
 
Stones could become the next Rio, I just don't see it at the moment though. Would prefer Laporte
 
devilish said:
SAF and Capello rated Jones to ridiculous levels. The former linked him with Edwards the latter to Baresi. In an authoritarian regime they would be probably shot for that.
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So?

Injuries have hindered him, but without injuries he could've been a very good player(obviously not to the level of Baresi etc). Obviously it now becomes easy to deny it, but in his debut season he looked a very good player.
 
He's a bit handy at dwelling on the ball. That's where the Ferdinand parallels end.
 
amolbhatia50k said:
They also rated players who went on to great players. He didn't say it was a rule without exceptions.
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KM said:
So?

Injuries have hindered him, but without injuries he could've been a very good player(obviously not to the level of Baresi etc). Obviously it now becomes easy to deny it, but in his debut season he looked a very good player.
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Its extremely difficult to rate young defenders. FFS at one point Inter (ok they are used to do ridiculous things but this take the biscuit) thought it was a good idea to swap a young Franco with his brother Beppe Baresi. The former was moved to AC Milan and the latter to Inter.

Now is it worth spending 50m on a young defender whose fate can go either way? I doubt that.
 
devilish said:
Its extremely difficult to rate young defenders. FFS at one point Inter (ok they are used to do ridiculous things but this take the biscuit) thought it was a good idea to swap a young Franco with his brother Beppe Baresi. The former was moved to AC Milan and the latter to Inter.

Now is it worth spending 50m on a young defender whose fate can go either way? I doubt that.
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Yes and that rule is applicable on all young players. But if managers of pedigree like Jose and Guardiola think one player is worth it, then I'd say that likelihood of him becoming a top player is more likely than others. Obviously both of them have been wrong previously too.

For what it's worth, I genuinely think he wouldn't be an upgrade on Daley Blind and based on this season, Blind is a much center back than Stones.
 
amolbhatia50k said:
My only worry is that we need about 3-4 attacking players. Can't see us spending that much on attack, midfield (Sanchez) and defence (Stones).

I'm hoping we go all out to invest in attack, and find a few good bargains on our defence and other areas.
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That is my thinking as well. The estimated fee for Sanchez is to be about 60m and Stones somewhere about the same, thats more than 100m there on jusr two players.
 
To be fair, one point regarding young defenders, and it ties into Devlish's skepticism, is that, it is probably harder to be patient with them. A young winger/CF can make more mistakes from 20-24 and get away with it as long as he shows his class and progression. A young defender will make mistakes and it's hard for a big club to allow that even if he's 20-24.

I personally wouldn't sign Stones for huge money. English players can often attract absurd fees, and I'm not sure he's the dead cert kind of player either. as long as we improve our attack hugely, I probably don't care that much what happens in other areas. The attack simply has to be revamped.
 
KM said:
Yes and that rule is applicable on all young players. But if managers of pedigree like Jose and Guardiola think one player is worth it, then I'd say that likelihood of him becoming a top player is more likely than others. Obviously both of them have been wrong previously too.

For what it's worth, I genuinely think he wouldn't be an upgrade on Daley Blind and based on this season, Blind is a much center back than Stones.
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I think that it gets more difficult the further back you go down the pitch. You see, if a player has great technique, speed, dribbling and a good eye to goal then he will probably make it as a striker/winger irrespective on whether you become mature (football wise) or not. Ok maybe the player will become a Nani rather then a Messi but he will still make it. However defenders/keepers cant get it wrong in terms of decision making because 1 brain fart will probably mean a goal and 1 costly goal can even end someone's career at top flight. Think about Taibi/Prunier's mess up with us for example.

I don't mind if we get Stones for 20m + addons. If he does well, we will get a return on investment. If not, then we will sell him/keep him as a reserve and still recoup most of the money. However for 40-50m the club should aim for the finished product.
 
Ace of Spades said:
That is my thinking as well. The estimated fee for Sanchez is to be about 60m and Stones somewhere about the same, thats more than 100m there on jusr two players.
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And I'd argue they're not even 10% the priority attack should be. Our defence is good, and our midfield is fine with everyone fit, it's what we do once we bring the ball into the last 3rd/4th of the pitch that is the biggest issue. Of course, a CB is also required, and a midfielder with legs to drive forward would be a fine addition too, but in terms of weightage I'd give a CF, RW, SS/AM far far more importance.
 
KM said:
For what it's worth, I genuinely think he wouldn't be an upgrade on Daley Blind and based on this season, Blind is a much center back than Stones.
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Completely agree. Though I am biased. Convo for another thread but I think Blind has been our best outfield player this season. I actually think we'd struggle to find better replacements than Blind-Smalling. Stones would be a £40m bench role until injuries.
 
amolbhatia50k said:
To be fair, one point regarding young defenders, and it ties into Devlish's skepticism, is that, it is probably harder to be patient with them. A young winger/CF can make more mistakes from 20-24 and get away with it as long as he shows his class and progression. A young defender will make mistakes and it's hard for a big club to allow that even if he's 20-24.

I personally wouldn't sign Stones for huge money. English players can often attract absurd fees, and I'm not sure he's the dead cert kind of player either. as long as we improve our attack hugely, I probably don't care that much what happens in other areas. The attack simply has to be revamped.
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Its not just patience mate, its the unpredictability of talent. As said to KM, if a player has great technique, pace, good dribbling skills and an eye to goal then he will probably make it as a striker/winger even if his football brain is a bit meah. However decision making is something that tend to develop quite late in the game (there were prodigies like Maldini/Baresi who seem born with the football brain of a 34 year old seasoned defender) and no one can predict that
 
devilish said:
I think that it gets more difficult the further back you go down the pitch. You see, if a player has great technique, speed, dribbling and a good eye to goal then he will probably make it as a striker/winger irrespective on whether you become mature (football wise) or not. Ok maybe the player will become a Nani rather then a Messi but he will still make it. However defenders/keepers cant get it wrong in terms of decision making because 1 brain fart will probably mean a goal and 1 costly goal can even end someone's career at top flight. Think about Taibi/Prunier's mess up with us for example.

I don't mind if we get Stones for 20m + addons. If he does well, we will get a return on investment. If not, then we will sell him/keep him as a reserve and still recoup most of the money. However for 40-50m the club should aim for the finished product.
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I think that's a fair point with respect to defenders.
 
devilish said:
Its not just patience mate, its the unpredictability of talent. As said to KM, if a player has great technique, pace, good dribbling skills and an eye to goal then he will probably make it as a striker/winger even if his football brain is a bit meah. However decision making is something that tend to develop quite late in the game (there were prodigies like Maldini/Baresi who seem born with the football brain of a 34 year old seasoned defender) and no one can predict that
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Agreed. I think of this last generation of the top defenders only Terry was with Chelsea from a young age. And even in his case, I think Mourinho came to Chelsea they became a "big" team only in 2004. Rarely have I seen top clubs sign CB's at 18-22 and then them make it huge, probably because you need to see concentration and positional sense from a CB which you don't from an attacker/CM.
 
If Blind can be turned into a ball playing center back under terrible conditions and under not great management, I'd imagine if Jose wants Stones, he'll turn him into a world beater.
 
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