But, as Stones prepares to head into a game that could earn him and his City team-mates footballing immortality, the defender does not look back on that dark period glumly but with a sense of quiet satisfaction and pride that he refused to run away from a fight or blame others for his misfortune. 5 not starting against Inter Milan in the Champions League final in Istanbul on Saturday is unthinkable. “It was probably one of the hardest times of my career,” Stones reflected this week.įast forward three years and the idea of City’s No. The “Barnsley Beckenbauer” was at risk of becoming the Barnsley chop. Arsenal and Chelsea were among those circling. Stones had suddenly dropped to sixth in the pecking order and Guardiola’s declaration, a couple of years earlier, that the England defender would be at City “as long as I’m here” was starting to look a little hollow. Ten days before the Lyon match, City had signed Nathan Ake from Bournemouth and, before too long, Ruben Dias would follow suit. Stones’ City future was in doubt, his career at a crossroads and the challenges were still mounting. Rather than the game presenting a way back for Stones, who had started just seven matches since the turn of the year, it seemed the walls were closing in more tightly than ever and a communication mix-up between Fernandinho and Eric Garcia leading to Lyon’s first goal in that shock 3-1 Champions League quarter-final defeat did not improve his mood. Guardiola had dispensed with his customary 4-3-3 to accommodate an additional central defender but plumped for a 35-year-old veteran midfielder and an inexperienced teenager to partner Aymeric Laporte in a back three.
John Stones probably knew what was coming but, if there had been any lingering doubts about where he stood in Pep Guardiola’s plans, the Manchester City manager’s team selection against Lyon banished them for good.
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