John Stones

[anton66]

Still makes me laugh that people say he should play in midfield.

He seems to be playing in a minefield.

 

[Papa Shango]

He seems to be playing in a minefield.

I have visions of him doing the calm down hand gesture thing whilst trying to disarm one with his feet.

 

[tsubaki]

So Neville was defending him.. and how his teammates let him down. Although I'm not terribly interested in his career now or his performances I thought I'd check out his contribution to the 4 goals in terms of what he did - or didn't do.

Goal 1: Meandering about in front of the back four - no attempt to do anything useful to stop the attack
Goal 2: Falls over - fails to recover - unable to stop Mirallas firing in a shot that goes beyond the keeper
Goal 3: Leaves a stricken Davies to follow the ball, leaving the recovered Davies one-on-one with the keeper
Goal 4: Clearance hits Coleman - arguably a bit unlucky

Culpable for the second and third goal, negligent for the opener and lax for the last one. I'd say that warranted a fair amount of criticism.

I disagree entirely, if there was one person culpable for two, probably three of the four goals it was Clichy:

1 - Clichy gives the ball away
2 - He actually intercepts the ball (edit) from Lukaku, its a bit lucky that it goes straight to Barkley's feet and then he is struggling to get back. Clichy gives him zero cover whatsoever and its Otamendi who is the one meandering.
3 - Clichy fails to block Davies, gets ragged by him, and ambles towards the penalty spot. Stones at least blocks Davies but no-one else went anywhere near him, apart from Yaya Toure who by that stage was going backwards.
4 - Stones tries to do what everyone spent 99% of his time here demanding that he do and gets unlucky

Also I think that Robles in the same position would probably have saved the fourth, almost certainly saved the third (Silva was in almost an identical position in the first half and Robles stopped it) and might well have stopped the second, so Bravo should get a lot of stick as well.

Stones was probably their best defender yesterday.

 

[ToffeeDan]

I disagree entirely, if there was one person culpable for two, probably three of the four goals it was Clichy:

1 - Clichy gives the ball away
2 - He actually intercepts the ball (edit) from Lukaku, its a bit lucky that it goes straight to Barkley's feet and then he is struggling to get back. Clichy gives him zero cover whatsoever and its Otamendi who is the one meandering.
3 - Clichy fails to block Davies, gets ragged by him, and ambles towards the penalty spot. Stones at least blocks Davies but no-one else went anywhere near him, apart from Yaya Toure who by that stage was going backwards.
4 - Stones tries to do what everyone spent 99% of his time here demanding that he do and gets unlucky

Also I think that Robles in the same position would probably have saved the fourth, almost certainly saved the third (Silva was in almost an identical position in the first half and Robles stopped it) and might well have stopped the second, so Bravo should get a lot of stick as well.

Stones was probably their best defender yesterday.

Fair enough - and I didn't check Clichy's contribution to 1-2 or 4.. but yeah, first mistakes count and all that jazz.

 

[jackyboy]

Thought Sagna was their best defender yesterday if I'm honest.

Also he's not the quickest is he?

 

[Brendan Janus]

Stones was at fault for all four LOL !!

 

[The Cowboy]

I disagree entirely, if there was one person culpable for two, probably three of the four goals it was Clichy:

1 - Clichy gives the ball away
2 - He actually intercepts the ball (edit) from Lukaku, its a bit lucky that it goes straight to Barkley's feet and then he is struggling to get back. Clichy gives him zero cover whatsoever and its Otamendi who is the one meandering.
3 - Clichy fails to block Davies, gets ragged by him, and ambles towards the penalty spot. Stones at least blocks Davies but no-one else went anywhere near him, apart from Yaya Toure who by that stage was going backwards.
4 - Stones tries to do what everyone spent 99% of his time here demanding that he do and gets unlucky

Also I think that Robles in the same position would probably have saved the fourth, almost certainly saved the third (Silva was in almost an identical position in the first half and Robles stopped it) and might well have stopped the second, so Bravo should get a lot of stick as well.

Stones was probably their best defender yesterday.

Davies goal: Davies ran into him, why on earth did he run away from him? Incredibly bad judgement. Stick on Davies = no goal.

Lookman goal: he hesitated loads before deciding to clear, giving the Everton player time to close him down. It wasn't unlucky, as his scope for successful clearance greatly diminished by the time he swung at it. If he'd waded in and leathered it first time, there would've been no Everton player near him to block it.

 

[maccavennie]

During the SSN interview they asked him how much more has he learned under Pep and he said "loads, like when receiving the ball trying to make sure it's with the correct foot so you can pass it quicker as thats really important"

I would imagine for top professionals this is an absolute given anyway???? I mean I've coached 5/6 year old kids and you talk about the basics.

I just thought to myself, well if you've only just got onto that nugget of info from supposedly the greatest manager in the world then I don't hold much hope for you!!!

 

[Kurt.]

Haters gonna hate

 

[The Cowboy]

During the SSN interview they asked him how much more has he learned under Pep and he said "loads, like when receiving the ball trying to make sure it's with the correct foot so you can pass it quicker as thats really important"

I would imagine for top professionals this is an absolute given anyway???? I mean I've coached 5/6 year old kids and you talk about the basics.

I just thought to myself, well if you've only just got onto that nugget of info from supposedly the greatest manager in the world then I don't hold much hope for you!!!

What a strange thing for him to comment on. It's not even a footballing concept, it's just common sense. Not to mention the fact that you can't always decide which foot you receive the ball onto (unless you're Ryan Babel).

 

[larbert toffee]

*resists urge for the mother of all vaults.

C'mon Don get it out of your system you know you want to!

 

[Minimeister]

The media still going on as if he should be encouraged to express himself. I wouldn't mind if he made mistakes by bursting forward or trying to bring it out from the back but it's always due to prannying about with it in stupid areas that even if the pass comes off doesn't really benefit the team.

 

[maccavennie]

What a strange thing for him to comment on. It's not even a footballing concept, it's just common sense. Not to mention the fact that you can't always decide which foot you receive the ball onto (unless you're Ryan Babel).

Yep, I thought it was just a really stupid thing to say, like out of all the things you would think he would say such as "he's taught me about not getting caught under the ball so positionally I'm more aware now" but he mentioned that and I just thought well he obviously isn't learning anything new then

 

[Donald Twain]

C'mon Don get it out of your system you know you want to!

I'm waiting for it to bottom out , say Sunderland or QPR then I'll pounce !

 

[tsubaki]

Davies goal: Davies ran into him, why on earth did he run away from him? Incredibly bad judgement. Stick on Davies = no goal.

He probably ran away from Davies because he thought once he had stopped Davies (which he did) the bigger danger was the ball to Lukaku in the middle, and because he assumed that Clichy had carried on his run into the area that Davies would be, and also because Yaya Toure was about three or four yards from the prostrate Davies.

Instead Clichy had gone into the middle to try and cover Lukaku - because Otamendi had got the wrong side of him (again) - but it would have been in vain because Rom would have been able to get the shot off if Barkley had passed to him, instead of Davies, and Toure for some reason goes towards Barkley (rather than towards Davies). Barkley plays the pass, Toure realizes the danger too late and Clichy ambles back at the same pace even though the ball is making its painfully slow way into the net, with a bit of anticipation (as Davies himself did in the first half with that Sagna header) he could have had a go at clearing it off the line.

Of the four of them, Stones is the only one who does anything like what he should be doing on that goal.