Tony Cascarino believes Manchester City defender John Stones is no better than the player he was at Everton.
The pundit shared that he thought the 25-year-old centre-back had stagnated and that he was the only player he could openly say that hadn’t improved working under Pep Guardiola.
Cascarino pointed out that the current Man City boss is known for improving his players but that he didn’t think Stones had gotten better despite joining the club from Everton in 2016.
“Well if you look at all the City players, we’re always lauding Pep for improving players, I don’t think John Stones… he probably is the only one I’d go…do you know what he hasn’t improved him, he isn’t a better player than when he was at Everton,” said Cascarino on talkSPORT (Saturday, June 8th, 7:13am).
“I don’t think he has improved, I feel John has stagnated as a centre-half.”
OPINION
Ouch. This is rather harsh of Cascarino to say the least. Stones had a nightmare for England in the 3-1 defeat to the Netherlands on Thursday but that isn’t enough to justify saying he is still the same player he was in 2016. Stones made an error for England, there’s no denying that, but has he not come on leaps and bounds at City? While the 25-year-old still makes the odd mistake for Man City, he is clearly more reliable than he was at the Toffees. If he hadn’t improved, Guardiola wouldn’t have called upon him so much in the 2018/19 season. After all Stones did manage 39 appearances across all competitions and did his part to help it be another season where Man City added several trophies to the cabinet. You feel that Stones can still get better, he is capable of getting rid of the needless mistakes in his game, but to say he hasn’t made progress under Guardiola borders on being ludicrous.