Money Can’t Buy You Form

A near £40m transfer bid, being on the back pages, constantly being praised by ex-players, being named in Pique’s world XI and linked with the likes of Real Madrid and Barcelona, it’s likely to go to anyone’s head, especially one so young who has only had a short time in the spotlight.

John Stones’ form has dropped in recent weeks. His positioning has been poor, his passing accuracy has been woeful and his last ditch challenges haven’t covered himself in glory. He conceded a penalty vs Stoke in a risky challenge he didn’t need to make, he should have conceded a penalty vs Man City for an ill-thought lunge and was partly to blame for the penalty vs Swansea. This added to the aforementioned sloppy passing and lack of clear decision making has left some questioning the kind of price tags that have been placed on his head.

Centre-back is one of the position where errors are highlighted more than any other and any mistake is a lot more likely to get punished than other areas. Stones has always played with fire at the back but he’s been so good that it’s rarely been a problem. The likes of Gerard Pique does this for Barcelona and every so often will make a mistake, it happens, but how often it happens is the key. For the likes of Pique, it’s very rare, he also knows how to defend when he has too. During the pre-season in 2014 Stones was woeful. He made mistakes that directly led to three goals and didn’t exactly give hope for the season to come. From that point however, until recently, he had been excellent.

Some have suggested it’s a case of believing his own hype, thinking he’s good enough to play for anyone in the world and maybe looking beyond life at Goodison Park. To say his head has been turned or his heart is no longer in it though I think is unfair. He could have easily pushed harder for a move in the summer and sulked when he didn’t get his wish but the performances and commitment after that have been exceptional. You only have to see his reaction to the goals we score to see how much it means to him, even with his Champions League dreams.

It appears to me however that he’s not playing on instinct anymore. Everything before seemed so instant and so easy. At the moment it looks as if he’s trying to make it look so easy instead of it being natural, instead of hearing the criticism and going into his shell he is rebelling against it, showing that his style of play will never be taken away from him. That attitude is commendable and should see him have a great career but he needs to get back to his natural best. He doesn’t have to prove anything to anyone.

We’ve seen too many players in this county not fulfill their talent and maybe that’s because people get on their backs too soon. It seems that Ross Barkley is playing within himself at the moment and has appeared to go the other way to Stones, criticism seems to negatively affect Barkley but we should be thankful it isn’t the same for Stones.

Stones is simply in a bad period of form, he’s 21 and it’s too be expected. He’s a victim of his own success in a way that we’re only so frustrated because we know how good he is. He will be back to his best soon, I have no doubt about that. 21 is young for any player but especially for a centre-back, he’s clearly extremely confident and maybe needs to be told to play his natural game, and not to force it. A period out of the team may help and having Jagielka and Mori for a few weeks may be the way forward in order to give him a reality check and re-focus him. We shouldn’t ask him to play any differently, just needs to stop thinking about anything else and get back to his natural best.