{"id":672762,"date":"2026-07-28T06:43:16","date_gmt":"2026-07-28T10:43:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/?p=672762"},"modified":"2026-07-28T06:43:16","modified_gmt":"2026-07-28T10:43:16","slug":"john-stones-inter-milan","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/2026\/07\/28\/john-stones-inter-milan\/","title":{"rendered":"Arsenal and Chelsea to Miss Out On &#8216;Top-Class&#8217; Target"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Former Manchester City man John Stones is close to agreeing a deal to join Serie A champions Inter Milan. Having seen out his contract at the Etihad, there were a number of clubs hoping to secure the signature of Stones; however, it appears that he will be making his way to the San Siro.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Read More:<\/strong> <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/2026\/07\/27\/chelsea-premier-league-champions-league-winner\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_self\">Chelsea Eyeing Move for Premier League &amp; Champions League Winner<\/a><\/p>\n<h2>John Stones Set for Milan Move Despite Arsenal and Chelsea Attempts<\/h2>\n<p class=\"\" style=\"max-width: 600px\"><smartframe-embed class=\"smartframe_wp_element\" customer-id=\"a61405551f80e72f675225f083759bb9\" image-id=\"fwuQdGApJ1fN\" style=\"width: 100%; display: inline-flex; max-width: 5322px; aspect-ratio: 5322\/3548;\" ><\/smartframe-embed><\/p>\n<h3>From Manchester to Milan<\/h3>\n<p>As confirmed by Fabrizio Romano, Inter Milan are closing in on a deal to sign John Stones. Romano <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/FabrizioRomano\/status\/2081805350634749964\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">stated,<\/a> \u2018Formal steps to follow but agreement in principle being sealed with the English centre back. Contract until June 2028\u2019.<\/p>\n<p>Stones will play his football away from Manchester City for the first time in 10 years. He signed for The Citizens after several successful seasons at Everton FC. He made 295 total appearances for City, scoring 19 goals.<\/p>\n<p>During his time in Manchester, Stones would win six Premier League titles, three FA Cups, three EFL Cups, one Champions League, one Super Cup and one Club World Cup. Quite the haul for the dependable centre-back. His abilities saw him deemed &#8220;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.mancity.com\/citytv\/mens\/pep-guardiola-press-conference-palermo-63890378\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">top-class<\/a>&#8221; by his coach Pep Guardiola.<\/p>\n<p>He achieved all of this despite suffering several big injuries. His final season in the North of England saw him make just nine Premier League appearances. If the deal goes through, he&#8217;ll join Cristian Chivu&#8217;s current crop of defenders, including the highly regarded Alessandro Bastoni, as well as linking up with former teammate Manuel Akanji.<\/p>\n<h3>Interest From Other Clubs<\/h3>\n<p>Although John Stones has seemingly made his mind up, Inter Milan aren\u2019t the first Italian club to be interested in the England international. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.skysports.com\/football\/news\/11095\/13567544\/john-stones-transfer-news-england-international-verbally-agrees-deal-to-join-inter-milan-amid-interest-from-arsenal-and-chelsea\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Juventus made contact<\/a> with Stones\u2019 team; however, evidence would show that they couldn\u2019t come to an agreement.<\/p>\n<p>After a successful World Cup campaign which saw him become pivotal in Thomas Tuchel\u2019s system, he attracted interest from two English giants. Premier League champions Arsenal were <a href=\"https:\/\/www.skysports.com\/football\/news\/11095\/13566206\/arsenal-transfer-news-gunners-interested-in-john-stones-and-ezri-konsa-after-william-saliba-injury-blow\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">reportedly<\/a> looking at Stones, as were <a href=\"https:\/\/www.skysports.com\/football\/news\/11095\/13565768\/chelsea-transfer-news-john-stones-emerges-as-potential-option-after-summer-exit-from-man-city\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Chelsea<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>The Gunners are potentially in the market for a centre-back after an injury to William Saliba is set to keep the Frenchman out for the first half of the season. Meanwhile, the Blues have already been busy in the window, making four signings over \u00a320 million, including a \u00a3117 million swoop for Morgan Rogers.<\/p>\n<p>Read More: <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/2026\/07\/25\/chelsea-morgan-rogers\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_self\">John Terry Discusses Key Factor In Chelsea Signing Morgan Rogers<\/a><\/p>\n<p>We likely won\u2019t see Stones compete in the Premier League next season, however, as Inter are the frontrunners for his signature.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Featured Image Credit<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>IMAGO \/ Action Plus<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Former Manchester City man John Stones is close to agreeing a deal to join Serie A champions Inter Milan. Having seen out his contract at the Etihad, there were a number of clubs hoping to secure the signature of Stones; however, it appears that he will be making his way to the San Siro. Read [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5755,"featured_media":659155,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"no","_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":[8,11,8438,30,3,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-672762","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-arsenal","category-chelsea","category-inter-milan","category-news","category-premier-league","category-serie-a"],"modified_by":"Alex Richards, LWOF Editor","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/672762","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\/5755"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=672762"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/672762\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":672776,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/672762\/revisions\/672776"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/659155"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=672762"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=672762"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=672762"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}