John Stones has opted for a different path, turning away from Premier League interest and moving towards Inter Milan as a free agent.<\/p>\n
The 32-year-old has already underlined his value on the international stage. He impressed from the bench in the round of 16 win over Mexico, when Tuchel\u2019s side held firm despite being a man down. He then played the full quarterfinal against Norway before starting the semifinal loss to Argentina.<\/p>\n
Injury problems have interrupted Stones throughout his City career, but his standing among elite Premier League centre-backs remains clear. He has won six titles, and his World Cup form suggested he is still operating at a high level when fit. For Inter, that makes the move look like a significant piece of business.<\/p>\n
According to Sky Sports, Stones has verbally agreed to join the scudetto winners and is due to sign a two-year contract before the end of the week.<\/p>\n
That agreement comes as a setback for Arsenal and Chelsea, both of whom had been linked with the defender. Stones also has a connection to Mikel Arteta, having worked with the Arsenal head coach when the Spaniard was Pep Guardiola\u2019s assistant at Manchester City.<\/p>\n
Juventus were also involved in the chase, but Beppe Marotta appears to have delivered once again, with Inter sealing the deal. The club have built a reputation for smart free-agent recruitment in recent years, adding Hakan \u00c7alhano\u011flu, Piotr Zielinski and Henrikh Mkhitaryan in similar fashion.<\/p>\n
If the move goes through, Stones will become only the fourth Englishman to represent Inter, after Gerry Hitchens, Paul Ince and Ashley Young. He is expected to help cover the departures of Stefan de Vrij and Francesco Acerbi, likely taking up the central role in Cristian Chivu\u2019s back three.<\/p>\n
For Arsenal, the broader concern is fitness. Arteta is already hoping for a healthy group for the opening match of the 2026-27 Premier League season against Coventry City, while William Saliba remains a major worry after playing through back pain at the World Cup before breaking down in France\u2019s semifinal defeat to Spain.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Stones has chosen Inter Milan, leaving Arsenal and Chelsea to look elsewhere after World Cup form.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":18087,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[192,190],"tags":[1876,1877,1878],"class_list":["post-18088","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-arsenal","category-chelsea","tag-cristian-chivu","tag-john","tag-mikel"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18088","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18088"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18088\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/18087"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18088"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18088"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18088"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}