John Stones says patience was the key to winning his place back for Manchester City after a slow start to the season.
Stones came back from playing a starring role in England's Euro 2020 run injured so missed most of pre-season with City, and later suffered a setback which prevented him from making an appearance for his club until mid-October.
He had been called up to the England squad for the October international break, despite having not played for his club until that point. However, since then, Stones started the wins over Burnley and Club Brugge, the Carabao Cup exit to West Ham, and he came off the bench in the defeat to West Ham after Aymeric Laporte's sending-off.
That handed him a starting spot in the derby win at Manchester United, and Stones will now look to keep his place when Laporte is back available.
Speaking ahead of England's final two World Cup qualifiers, Stones has reflected on how he had to stay patient in order to kick-start his season.
He told TalkSport: “It was an accumulation of things, really. I had a few injuries at the start of the season, I came back and was just getting back up to speed, in that respect.
“And the team were playing well. I had to be patient and respect what the guys were doing. They were doing good and sometimes you can’t change a winning team, so I had to be patient and wait for my time.
“I did that and I’ve had a good few games since the last camp when we met up and I’m happy to be back here again.”
Expanding on his struggles, Stones said the support of Gareth Southgate before the October camp with the Three Lions helped him keep positive.
“Maybe last camp or the camp before that I spoke to Gareth about it - it was almost like a reassurance of things I already knew or was thinking," he said.
“He told me to stick with it and I would get my time. Sometimes when you are not playing, you know why - because of errors or bad form or whatever.
“But I knew it was not anything like that. So it was a great break coming to England seeing a different environment and different people and trying to improve for when I went back to City.
“I knew I had to be patient from the start of the season. I had two really annoying injuries that came at a bad time in the respective periods when I was coming back. Both times we had a game on the Wednesday and I was ready for the Thursday to train again.
“There just was not that amount of time to get back. The team was playing well and I knew I just had to be patient and wait for my opportunity again."
