Pep Guardiola details Manchester City’s John Stones frustrations ahead of Wolves clash | OneFootball

Pep Guardiola has insisted that despite playing ‘less than 30 per cent’ of Manchester City’s games last season, John Stones is ‘massively’ important for the club’s plans.

Stones struggled to maintain fitness over the course of the recent campaign as Manchester City underwent a personnel crisis at centre-half in the fall of 2024 that forced the club into signing Abdukodir Khusanov and Vitor Reis in January.

The 31-year-old is entering the final year of his Manchester City contract and is keen to stay on and contribute despite a wider acceptance that the Blues need to trim their backline ahead of the 2025-26 campaign.

Reis has joined Girona on loan for the upcoming season, which means Stones is set to fight for his place under Guardiola and hopefully earn a contract renewal, being one of Guardiola’s first signings at the Etihad Stadium in 2016.

Despite making a blistering start to the previous season with crucial injury-time goals against Arsenal and Wolves, fitness issues once again got the better of the former Everton man, who suffered a hamstring issue against Real Madrid in February that kept him on the sidelines till the end of the season.

City begin their 2025-26 Premier League campaign against Wolves at the Molineux Stadium on Saturday, with Stones in line to make his first Premier League start in six months after impressing in a cameo against Palermo in a pre-season friendly last weekend.

Guardiola remains a huge fan of Stones, who was instrumental to Manchester City’s success in the 2017-18, 2020-21 and 2022-23 campaigns, but is also reported to have had his patience tested by how often Stones has succumbed to injuries during his time at the Etihad Stadium.

Stones has made 277 appearances in all competitions for Manchester City since joining from Everton for £47.5 million in 2016, which point to an average of just over 30 outings made in a season by the six-time Premier League winner.

Speaking earlier this week, Pep Guardiola issued significant praise on John Stones amid uncertainty over the England international’s future and concerns over his fitness and injury record off the back of a troublesome last campaign.

“Ah, massively,” Guardiola responded when asked by one reporter how important it is for John Stones to remain fit this forthcoming season. “In the year of the treble (2023) and quadruple (2019), John Stones was massively important.”

“He (Stones) is a top class player, but last season he played less than 30% of the games. He was injured a lot of time. What we want is for him to be fit.

“In the (Club) World Cup, he didn’t play much, played the first 45 minutes (vs Palermo), and step by step – we need him. We have good central defenders, we need him!”