West Ham United: Roshane Thomas discusses John Stones transfer link

The Athletic’s Roshane Thomas has recently shed some light on West Ham United’s efforts to sign John Stones from Manchester City.

In late July, The Sun ran a report which claimed that David Moyes and the English centre-back could be set for a reunion at the London Stadium.

It was reported that with City having had a bid accepted for Nathan Ake before he later signed for the club, Stones looked ‘certain’ to leave the Etihad Stadium.

The Sun went on to state that Stones ‘could’ be made available for transfer for £20m and that had ‘sparked interest’ from the Irons.

In the latest episode of The Athletic’s U Irons podcast, Thomas discussed the transfer link between West Ham and the Manchester City defender.

He said: “Yeah, there was initially interest in Stones and if you remember, Moyes pretty much gave him his chance at Everton and from there he went on to join Man City.

“It’s a deal that West Ham couldn’t get over the line for a number of different reasons.

“Obviously, Stones started the match [on Monday] night against Wolverhampton Wanderers. So, now you’re wondering perhaps he’s going to become a first-team regular for Man City this season.

“That deal was trying to be done on the basis that Stones wouldn’t be [a] first-team regular at Man City but, yeah, that deal wasn’t able to get over the line, unfortunately.”

TIF Thoughts…

As can be seen in what the journalist had to say, the interest in Stones was on the basis that he would no longer be a first-team player for Pep Guardiola’s side.

However, Thomas did state that there were “a number of different reasons” as to why it did not happen, so maybe that was only one of the issues.

With Stones having played the full match against the Old Gold on Monday night, the defender picked up a fairly weak performance rating of 6.57/10 (per WhoScored).

So, perhaps it should not be too much of a concern that the Irons missed out on signing the £27m-rated defender.