Everton's John Stones set to show Chelsea what they're missing

Everton legend Peter Reid says John Stones deserves credit for his professionalism during the transfer window, with Chelsea ultimately failing to secure the young defender from Goodison Park.

Chelsea manager Jose Mourinho claimed he did not enjoy his last trip to Goodison Park. There were nine goals in August 2014, and while the London side scored two-thirds of them in a 6-3 win, the sheer number seemed an affront to a defensive organiser like Mourinho. The Portuguese's principles do not entail such chaos.
Mourinho certainly has not enjoyed the start to this season. There have been nine goals; not in total, but just those conceded by Chelsea in four league games. The strategist supreme is presiding over a strangely disorganised team. Holes have developed in what was a watertight back four. They used to be shielded superbly. They are not any more.

The manager's designated solution will be on show at Goodison Park on Saturday; just not for Chelsea. Everton repelled four bids for John Stones and rejected his transfer request. The first game after the transfer window closed could have been Stones' Chelsea debut but instead, by a quirk of the fixture list, offers them an immediate opportunity to see what they missed.

This has proved a significant matchup in the past. Two seasons ago, Chelsea visited Goodison in the equivalent game. Gareth Barry's excellent debut in a 1-0 win for Everton proved a marker for a season when he prospered. Samuel Eto'o drew a blank on his bow to set the tone for a year when Chelsea's strikers scored too few goals for them to win the title. Mourinho, tellingly, left Merseyside muttering darkly about his side's lack of killer instinct.

He had attempted to sign Wayne Rooney that summer. Stones represents another of the rare cases of Mourinho not getting what he wanted. Papy Djilobodji, the Senegalese centre-back surprisingly signed from Nantes for £2.7 million, is the man he did get. The presumption is that he will not be parachuted straight into the team. Mourinho is likelier to select two from Kurt Zouma, Gary Cahill and John Terry. Chelsea's captain Terry, who played all 3,420 minutes of the previous Premier League season, has missed 171 minutes in his club's past three games alone, due to a substitution, a sending off and a suspension.

It highlights the instability in the Chelsea defence. There has been continuity in the Everton rear guard.
Stones and his centre-back partner Phil Jagielka have started all five games, including the Capital One Cup win over Barnsley. Everton conceded three times to their League One opponents in that game, with Stones seeming culpable for at least one, yet manager Roberto Martinez still described his display as "incredible." It was less credibility-defying than the Spaniard's assertion that Stones accidentally handed in a transfer request the following day.
Yet in the search for "winners"' and "losers" in the transfer market, it was hard to dismiss as Martinez as one of the failures. He showed the steel behind the ever-present smile. At a time when Everton were deemed insufficiently ambitious by a section of their support, Martinez showed a crowd-pleasing refusal to be cowed by a wealthier club.
His resolve may be underpinned by financial acumen. It can be a risk to reject a vast offer for a player; there is no guarantee such a windfall will be on offer again. Yet Stones' age (21) and potential, coupled with Chelsea's obvious interest in recruiting a high-class centre-back and the possibility that Manchester United, who are developing an inglorious record of paying over the odds, may enter the bidding should ensure Everton could cash in another time.
Perhaps the credit belongs with chairman Bill Kenwright, who has a particular reluctance to allow prized assets to go, and whose lifelong support of a club with the motto nil satis nisi optimum (nothing but the best) would make it harder for him to reconcile with the notion that Everton could be a stepping stone.
But after an underwhelming season last year, when slow build-up and substandard results damaged Martinez's reputation among Evertonians, he has managed to tap into a tradition at Goodison Park. The Spaniard's polite demeanour and fondness for needless superlatives does not automatically suggest he has the resolve of his sterner predecessor David Moyes, but his has been an amiable and public brand of defiance. It was similar to when he resisted United's attempts to sign Leighton Baines in 2013. He may have the slickness of a salesman but he can convince when sounding obdurate.

As the suspicion is that Martinez was happier to sell Marouane Fellaini, the probability is that Everton have only lost two players in the last decade that they were keen to keep: Mikel Arteta and Joleon Lescott, whose £22m move to the Etihad Stadium in 2009 ensured Moyes took particular pleasure from beating Manchester City thereafter.
One of the Scot's feats was to build a team and keep it together. Thus far, Martinez is emulating that approach. He has retained talents such as Seamus Coleman, James McCarthy, Ross Barkley, Romelu Lukaku and Stones. That is the Everton way.

Roberto Martinez has done a good job of keeping Everton's young promising talent.

Perhaps their glorious history dictates they cannot see themselves as a feeder club; their title-winning sides certainly were not. Perhaps it is their pride. Maybe it is their culture and Stones, despite his transfer request, joins Baines and Jagielka among those who have continued to perform with professionalism despite interest from the elite. Or it could be simply a case that every player's circumstances are different.
Whichever, a contrast can be drawn with Southampton, who have banked £130m from Liverpool, Arsenal and United alone in the last 16 months after selling seven players: Rickie Lambert, Adam Lallana, Dejan Lovren, Calum Chambers, Luke Shaw, Morgan Schneiderlin and Nathaniel Clyne.

That has also allowed them to reinvest whereas, when the season began, the salient statistic appeared to be that Everton were the Premier League's lowest spenders. Only Gerard Deulofeu and the cheap Belgian David Henen had been bought. Yet their net spend was not the smallest, and it had grown by around £14m after the late purchases of Leandro Rodriguez, Ramiro Funes Mori and Aaron Lennon.

Southampton paid out more than twice as much as Everton but ended the summer with the division's smallest net spend and with indications that the departure of Schneiderlin may be one sale too many.
Everton, who only sold youngster Chris Long to Burnley for £500,000, were around mid-table in the most meaningful spending stakes, behind Watford, West Brom and Bournemouth but ahead of those, such as Tottenham, Aston Villa, Stoke and Southampton, who recouped rather more in sales.

A title-chasing team such as Chelsea has more of a need for a centre-back who is valued at up to £40m than a side such as Everton who, realistically, are likelier to finish in the second quartet than the top four. But a refusal to sell Stones, even if only for a year or two, was a statement of sorts. It was one in keeping with Everton's past.

Epl 05:21