It was all smiles for John Stones in the summer of 2019 as Manchester City celebrated an unprecedented domestic treble. But a very difficult time was around the corner for him.
A glaring mistake for England contributed to their Nations League defeat against the Netherlands and the bad form carried on into the following campaign, with Stones often at the heart of City’s misfortunes.
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Getty Images - Getty
A calamitous display at the back alongside Nicolas Otamendi saw City concede three times in a shock defeat to Norwich, who ended up finishing bottom of the top flight. This and more clumsy performances saw him get labelled a ‘massive problem’ for Pep Guardiola’s side.
But Stones even got stick during matches they won. He was the butt of many jokes online when Port Vale striker Tom Pope, who had criticised his defending against the Dutch in a Twitter rant, scored a goal against him. The fact City won the tie 4-1 became irrelevant.
These bad displays, coupled with issues in his personal life reported in the tabloids, left Stones in crisis. Despite being physically fit, Stones was left out of City’s squad to face Tottenham in February 2020 – Guardiola citing the player not being in the right frame of mind to participate in an important Premier League match.
Guardiola did show faith in Stones in the Carabao Cup final a couple of weeks later but the defender failed to repay it. A tumble in a dangerous area led to Aston Villa pulling a goal back on the stroke of half time at Wembley.
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Fortunately for Stones, he and City got over the line but The Athletic’s Manchester City correspondent Sam Lee recalls thinking this would spell the end of the England international’s career at the Etihad.
Winning the Carabao Cup was as good as it got for City last season as they suffered disappointing FA Cup and Champions League exits while Liverpool took their crown as Premier League champions in style.
City looked lost in defence without Aymeric Laporte for a large part of the campaign and the summer saw an overhaul in the defensive deparment as Ruben Dias and Nathan Ake came in. Stones was linked with a number of Premier League clubs, including Arsenal, Leeds and West Ham, while a return to Everton was also very much a possibility, says Lee.
That didn’t happen. Instead, months of video analysis and soul-searching awaited for Stones as competition to be a first choice centre-back at City increased.
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Things couldn’t look any more different for Stones and City now. He’s been at the heart of all of their brilliant success, with many tipping them to win all four major trophies this season.
What are the secrets behind his excellent comeback? Stones has put a lot of his off-pitch problems behind him, with Lee believing Guardiola’s mentioning of the personal issues on many occasions as significant.
“When discussing him, Guardiola would always mention the personal problems,” Lee told talkSPORT.com.
“He always says now he’s got over those and he’s got his head right. I feel in the media when personal issues is used, some can think he’s playing up and the fact Guardiola has mentioned that has been significant.”
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The 26-year-old gave more insight into his recovery earlier this month as he admitted to be seeing a sports psychologist.
Admitting to this is a hurdle anyone affected by their mental health has to clear but it’s taboo in professional sport, especially football, as trainee sport and exercise psychologist with the British Psychology Society Jack Hicks-Flynn reveals.
“In football, particularly youth football, there’s this inherent fear of failure. Fear of making mistakes is huge – how do I recover from this mistake?” Hicks-Flynn told talkSPORT.com.
“Perceptions of mistakes – is it a target to overcome or is it a threat to my performance? The first-team environment is another issue because it’s so cut-throat. One week you’re starting and the next you’re not.
“People forget these players are human. They’re portrayed as these angelic figures, who have so much money, have the ‘perfect lives’, but actually if you’ve worked in professional football you know they’ve got no time to do anything they really want other than football.
“They’re resting, recuperating, training, travelling for matches, doing media duties and are in the gym. People think they have a training session and just go home, it’s simply not the case.
“In the case of John Stones… Pep Guardiola has helped him but definitely with the psychological support he’s become more aware of his psychological needs and how to cope with the demands of professional football, especially with what comes with Manchester City.”
This has set Stones on the path to thrive excellently but there’s always going to be that vulnerability there when you’re first getting back into the team. Lee argues there’s been one other key ingredient in making that transition go so well, the signing of Dias.
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City are now a tight defensive unit, conceding just three goals in their last eleven league matches leading Stones and Dias to being likened to Rio Ferdinand and Nemanja Vidic.
“Dias isn’t just a player who plays well himself, he makes others around him play well,” Lee said.
“Over 90 minutes he’s constantly shouting, talking and telling people what to do and that’s a good partner for Stones, especially when he was coming back into the team when he wasn’t as confident as he is right now.”
What’s next for Stones? He hasn’t featured for England since that disaster against the Dutch but he should be a shoo-in for their World Cup qualifiers in March and in Gareth Southgate’s Euro 2020 squad, believes Jonathan Woodgate.
“There’s no better English centre-back than John Stones. If I was Gareth Southgate he’d be my number one centre-back straight away,” the former Three Lions defender told talkSPORT.
“Whether you play three or four at the back, he’d be in my team. He’s outstanding.”
The stakes will only get higher when Euro 2020 rolls around but what he’s done this season on and off the pitch shows Stones has never been in a better position to tackle what’s in front of him.
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