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#4 John Stones (England, Manchester City)
The Englishman had a great 2018 FIFA World Cup and was the architect in Southgate’s defence. He was extremely composed and at ease with the ball at him feet, which made it very easy for him to seamlessly slot into the young English Coach’s tactics. Stones regularly played the ball out of the back, threaded beautiful balls for his attackers and showed his offensive capabilities from set pieces as well – scoring two goals, as England finished fourth in the tournament. Stones earned a lot of praise, but he had already been doing it since last season for Manchester City.
Pep Guardiola has high demands from his defenders and he expects nothing less from the English youngster, which is why there are several learning instances for Stones from last season, especially when playing the ball out of the defence. But even with his mistakes, Stones still had a fabulous passing record last season, averaging 83 passes per game with almost 98% accuracy. What makes him special is that almost one-third of his passes are played forward, indeed, he averaged almost 29 forward passes per game last season. He endured a difficult end to the 2017/18 season but should be getting even better this season.
John Stones has abilities unlike any English defenders at present, especially his ball playing skills, and he certainly is one of the finest ball-playing center backs around at the moment.
