{"id":53,"date":"2016-08-11T17:09:54","date_gmt":"2016-08-11T17:09:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonfootball.com\/?p=53"},"modified":"2017-10-25T12:59:43","modified_gmt":"2017-10-25T16:59:43","slug":"stones-sale-kick-starts-evertons-summer-spending","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/2016\/08\/11\/stones-sale-kick-starts-evertons-summer-spending\/","title":{"rendered":"Stones\u2019 sale kick-starts Everton\u2019s summer spending"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>One of <strong>English<\/strong> football\u2019s longest running transfer sagas, <strong>John Stones<\/strong> to whichever elite club in the country, finally came to an end on Tuesday morning. <strong>Everton<\/strong> stood firm for 13 months, rejecting three <strong>Chelsea<\/strong> bids in the process, before finally\u00a0allowing the centre back to <a href=\"http:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/sport\/football\/37020275\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">join <strong>Manchester City<\/strong><\/a>. They held out for \u00a347.5 million; a record fee for an English defender. The completion of the move returned a smile to the face of the 22-year-old and kick-started Everton\u2019s summer spending. <strong>Ashley Williams<\/strong> signed for \u00a312 million and Everton also look set to complete the signing of <a href=\"http:\/\/www.sunderlandecho.com\/sport\/football\/sunderland-afc\/lamine-kone-latest-everton-step-up-interest-in-18m-defender-but-sunderland-want-replacement-in-1-8059632\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><strong>Lamine Kone<\/strong><\/a>.<\/p>\n<h2>Stones\u2019 sale kick-starts Everton\u2019s summer spending<\/h2>\n<h3>Money CAN buy you Stones<\/h3>\n<p>It was July last year when Everton were rocked by Chelsea\u2019s disruptive attempts to lure Stones to <strong>Stamford Bridge<\/strong>. The <strong>Toffees<\/strong> are a club that pride\u00a0themselves on doing business quietly. The <strong>Londoners<\/strong> had other ideas. After <a href=\"http:\/\/www.telegraph.co.uk\/sport\/football\/teams\/chelsea\/11746567\/Chelsea-must-raise-offer-for-John-Stones-after-20m-bid-rejected.html\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">their initial \u00a320 million bid was rejected<\/a>, Chelsea leaked the negotiations to the press.<\/p>\n<p>A <a href=\"http:\/\/www.telegraph.co.uk\/sport\/football\/teams\/chelsea\/11771080\/Chelsea-transfers-Everton-reject-second-John-Stones-bid.html\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">second bid of \u00a326 million<\/a>\u00a0was also rebuffed; as well as\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.skysports.com\/football\/news\/11671\/9954705\/everton-reject-30m-chelsea-bid-for-john-stones\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">a third offer of \u00a330 million<\/a>. Everton maintained the player was not for sale from the off. Chelsea were relentless but Stones, despite a late transfer request, remained at <strong>Goodison Park.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>You can find the rest of this article at our previous site\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\" target=\"_self\">Last word on sports<\/a>. Keep it locked here on <a href=\"https:\/\/lwosonfootball.ms.lastwordonsports.com\/home\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Last Word on Football<\/a>\u00a0for all the latest analysis, news, opinion and more about the beatiful game as we expand and bring you a dedicated, football only site. It is all the best of what you expect from last word, and more.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>One of English football\u2019s longest running transfer sagas, John Stones to whichever elite club in the country, finally came to an end on Tuesday morning. Everton stood firm for 13 months, rejecting three Chelsea bids in the process, before finally\u00a0allowing the centre back to join Manchester City. They held out for \u00a347.5 million; a record [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":54,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[13,30,3],"tags":[46,45,44],"class_list":["post-53","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-everton","category-news","category-premier-league","tag-chelsea","tag-everton","tag-john-stones"],"modified_by":"Ben Kerr","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=53"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/54"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=53"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=53"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=53"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}