It was revealed late last week that Everton had rejected a £20 million bid from Chelsea for their precocious young defender John Stones, and in typically outspoken fashion, Blues boss Jose Mourinho has confirmed the Londoners will continue to bid for the 21-year-old until the transfer window closes on September 1st.
In a recent interview with Sky Sports, Mourinho remains confident of prying the defender away from Goodison Park this summer.
“We made a bid, we can make it – it’s an open market until 1st September. At the moment they say we don’t accept this bid – they don’t say: ‘We don’t accept bids; any bids’, said Mourinho.
“While they say we don’t accept this bid, until 1st September we can improve the bid, one pound more, 10 pounds more we can improve the bid.
“If one day [Everton manager] Roberto Martinez or the chairman come and say he’s not for sale, we don’t accept any bid, it’s game over.
“So during this process, it’s clear, we don’t deny we made a bid for Stones. We are trying to buy.”
Mourinho has identified Stones as the ideal long term replacement for club captain John Terry who turns 35 in December, as the realisation sets in that the veteran defender is not getting any younger and cannot continue to perform at the highest level in the foreseeable future, despite his superb 2014-15 campaign where he lead Chelsea to its fifth league title.
It has been a meteoritic rise to prominence for Stones, who joined the Toffees from Barnsley for £3 million in 2013, and has gone on to make over 50 appearances for the Merseysiders, cementing his status as the club’s first choice central-defender on the back of a long term injury suffered by Phil Jagielka at the beginning of last season.
At the beginning of the 2014-15 campaign, Stones was rewarded for his promising debut season by inking a new five-year deal with the Toffee’s worth around £30,000 a week, keeping him at the club until 2019.
Stones has also been fast tracked into England calculations, after being put on standby for the Three Lions World Cup squad pending the recovery of Phil Jones’ shoulder injury. In spite of Jones returning to full fitness and taking his place at the finals, Stones made his England debut against Peru in a warm-up match, with his first full start following shortly after against Norway in a friendly at Wembley.
MORE: Seven reasons why Chelsea see John Stones as the perfect John Terry replacement
The public manner in which the way the player is being courted by Mourinho and Chelsea has angered Everton boss Roberto Martinez, who fired back emphatically after his sides 3-1 defeat to Arsenal in the Asia Trophy final, outlining the stance of their reluctance to sell the player, and in the process venting his frustration at way the deal has been played out through the media.
“There is the disappointment of a club making a statement to the press and making it openly, said an aggrieved Martinez.
“I don’t think we’d do it and speak about a player. John Stones is an Everton player, full stop.
“We are not a selling club. We are not a club that needs to be worried about what other clubs put through the press.”
It is such a common occurrence in today’s football to see young player’s heads turned by the lure of a potential move to a club with greater prestige and wealth, neglecting their own personal development by making a rash, short sighted decision and choosing to make the move to a big club with an already established first team.
With Terry and Gary Cahill Chelsea’s undisputed first choice centre-back pairing, along with Branislav Ivanovic who is equally as capable at right-back or in the centre, Stones would find it difficult to dislodge either of the three next season, meaning he would be used sparingly, called upon if an injury occurs or featuring in cup matches, where managers see that as an opportunity to shuffle their park through busy mid season schedules, stunting his development in the process.
On the contrary, another season at Everton would allow Stones to continue to grow in stature by being able to guarantee his starting place week-in and week-out. Stones has yet to play a full season in the Premier League, and barring injury, will be an integral part of Martinez’s Everton’s spine for this term.
If Stones does stay put, another beneficiary of this decision would be the England national team, as they continue to re-build their squad ahead of Euro 2016 next summer. Playing regularly at Everton this season would significantly boost Stones’s chances of breaking his way into Roy Hodgson’s plans, as uncertainty remains as to who will be the 67-year-old’s preferred defensive pairing for the tournament.
Everton’s 2013-14 financial results showed the club earned a record profit of £28.2 million, as well as 39% increase in turnover from £86.4 million to £120.5 million, the first time in the club’s history its broken through £100 million mark.
These numbers were boosted by the Premier League’s new bumper TV deal worth £5.14 billion, where all 20 clubs get a greater slice of the revenue pie, with Everton bagging £77.65 million worth of TV prize money from the 2014-15 season. The signing of Romelu Lukaku for a club record fee of £28 million exemplified the club’s financial resurgence.
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With this in mind, these financial findings indicate Everton are under no financial pressure to cash in on Stones in order to balance the books, something which has not been the case in previous season when they were helpless in loosing key players such as Joleon Lescott, Marouane Fellaini, and Mikel Arteta.
With Chelsea tipped to bid as a high as £34 million, Everton must take a strong stance by completely ruling out the sale of Stones in order to send a clear message to the English champions that they are not prepared to negotiate for any price.
Stones has a bright future and it is inevitable he will move on to bigger and better things, but as things stand right now, resisting Chelsea’s urge and remaining at Everton for at least one more season would be a wiser choice for both his short and long term future.
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