John Stones Ruled Out From Manchester City Action

At his Press Conference today in advance of the match against Shakhtar Donetsk, Pep Guardiola explained defender John Stones had suffered an injury earlier in the day.

Manchester City are already in the midst of a minor injury crisis, having suffered injuries to Leroy Sane and Aymeric Laporte, and with Gabriel Jesus and John Stones both only recently returned to action following lay offs.

Despite the resources available to Manchester City, given their profligacy in the transfer market in the last couple of years the decision was made at the highest level within the club not to replace departing skipper Vincent Kompany last Summer.

That decision seemed to be driven by a desire to not “overpay” for any transfer target and a belief that the top tier defensive targets were simply not available. However laudable those aims, it left the squad with only 3 centre backs going into the new season.

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As fans we have been in similar positions before – like when both of our left backs were allowed to leave the Club in the same window and we bought only one replacement who has been pretty much injured ever since. So we knew the risks and that if the football gods looked unfavourably upon us we were vulnerable.

Of course this has now all come to pass, but I take no pleasure in recounting the “I told you so’s”. Aymeric Laporte has suffered a serious injury to his knee ligaments ruling him out for some 6 months and now John Stones appears to have suffered a recurrence of his thigh injury.

In effect this leaves Guardiola with only Nicolas Otamendi as a senior centre back in his squad for the next 5 or 6 weeks. Guardiola will have to either coax defensive steel from Fernandinho, move Kyle Walker across or rely upon the youth players at the fringes of the squad such as Taylor Harwood-Bellis and Eric Garcia.

Luckily, we know Guardiola is capable of coaching players to fulfill potential so it is in Pep we must trust. Unfortunately these things tend to take time to achieve and whatever happens we have the pressure of games to play.

What we know from this point onwards is that whoever we play at centre back will get targeted by opposition tactical pressing – think what happened to Mangala against Liverpool back in 2015/16 at the Etihad. Quite simply we will have to focus on out scoring our opponents rather than unduly worrying about perceived defensive frailties.

Yet the saddest part of this whole story is that Stones is injured again, and it must be particularly galling to have broken down again after such a recent recovery. This is a big season for Stones where he needs to realise his potential and crack on, as there is the prospect of a new longer contract to aim for.

Further performances disjointed by injury will not assist him in reaching his targets and for a player seemingly playing with some fear already, each lay off seems to linger and eat away at his self belief.

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So our team will crack on and do what it needs to do. Let us just hope that Stones has the time and strength to put this latest lay off behind him and to return to action, fitter and more focussed than ever to lead us into the games ahead. Get well soon, Stonesy.