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John Stones

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Pabbers said:
Its not though.

The player will want to play at the top level, im not sure we can offer that, and you have to be realistic.

Even if we finish top 4, we wont be challenging for the CL, and if Stones is as good as you and me think....he should be at a club winning it.
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When he is that good, which still could be a few years down the line, and if a club comes in that might suit his ability then we discuss what he means to us. Lots of fluidity between then and now. We'd have assumed Chelsea were one of those clubs during the summer. Some chance they won't be in a couple more years.
Just look at some of the no mark players who have won the champions league and the great players who haven't. Everything is a gamble.
From a playing perspective do you think Bale to Madrid has ended up a good move for him, Madrid or Spurs?
 
Stones still needs some way to go before he can be classed as a top defender. He can read the game and has a brilliant tackle in him and plays the ball out with real class. But he has wobbled the last 2 games defending at corners and needs to improve this aspect of the game. By him getting better at defending corners, will by its very nature help us not to concede at corners. If that means banging on Martinez's door and demanding the team practice set piece defending - Baines eluded that they did practice defending set pieces after the Palace game and in the run up to Norwich - then that is what he needs to do. It seems like Lukaku has done extra work on trapping/controlling the ball since the start of the season and has become very much better at it.
 
We need to keep an eye on the situation at Utd. They cannot be happy at how things have gone for them since Ferguson has left the club. They have spent several fortunes and still don't have a team.

They could turn to Mourinho to try to get them back to where they think they should be and then we would have a problem in keeping Stones. The lure of Mourinho and Utd may be hard to resist for him.
 

Pabbers said:
I love watching Stones, I really do. He is sexual chocolate with the ball most the time... BUT £50 million can really make us better.

Would we be THAT much worse with Jags & Mori as our pairing ????
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This will get us 2 players, and we'd still need to replace a centreback
 
Stones is a top class defender in the estimations of every seasoned observer of the game .. with the possible exception of Merson and that hooky nose RS who sits besides him .. subject to whether or not they've been on the ching.
 
Pabbers said:
Well Stones cost us £3.5 million, and players with just as much potential will go for that again.

We dont need to spend £50 million to replace him.
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At some point you have to stop buying potential and buy finished products. Roberto's vision is great, but it can't go on like that forever. Otherwise, we'll never get over the hump, and we'll just keep developing players for other clubs to buy.

If Stones goes, I hope it's to Barca. He's perfect for them, and we may be able to slip a nullification of Del's buyback clause into the deal :). Couldn't really blame Stones for wanting to play for them either.
 

carolinablue232 said:
At some point you have to stop buying potential and buy finished products. Roberto's vision is great, but it can't go on like that forever. Otherwise, we'll never get over the hump, and we'll just keep developing players for other clubs to buy.

If Stones goes, I hope it's to Barca. He's perfect for them, and we may be able to slip a nullification of Del's buyback clause into the deal :). Couldn't really blame Stones for wanting to play for them either.
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I've said it before but this is how Atletico made the step up to a top club. They may sell their players but they spend all of that money on a top class replacement. Spurs and Liverpool squandered all their money from big transfers on half a dozen players with potential and it didn't benefit them at all.
 
That bit where he was yelling at Barry to push up really highlighted what went wrong in our second half last week.

I hope he stays here until he has matured, 25/26 at least, even then his best years are still ahead of him.
 
Pabbers said:
If John Stones has no say in the matter, then fine, lets keep him. But you and I know football does not work like that, and we will lose him at some point.

Defensively, as a unit he does not make us any stronger than Jags & Mori/Distin. Individually he is magic, but the unit/team is the priority.
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This.

But he is still young
 
Fact remains he's on 20/30 grand a week when he'd be on at least 100k at Chelsea We can't compete with that even if we could offer him Champions League which is never going to happen. As I said about Rom in the thread about him, these players crave more than just fighting for 5th or 6th and the odd cup run. It's called ambition and no one should slag him for it, though slapping in a transfer requested deep into a transfer window is not the right way to go about it. I will happily eat my hat if both Stones and Rom are here this time next year
 
The lad is quality, but the greatest defender in the world as many say? It's not all about timed tackles and bringing the ball out. All I see is us keep shipping goals for fun!
 

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