JOHN STONES thought he had broken his foot during the embarrassing defeat to Iceland at Wembley.
When he got to Germany, the defender missed training due to illness and spent a day on the toilet instead.
But despite not having the smoothest of preparations for the Euros opener against Serbia in Gelsenkirchen, he was in good spirits on Friday.
It is probably because Stones knows he was lucky to avoid a serious injury following Jon Dagur Thorsteinsson’s clumsy tackle in the first minute of the final warm-up game.
Clearly struggling at Wembley, Stones was partly to blame for the Iceland winner and he was substituted at half-time as a precaution.
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With Harry Maguire ruled out of the tournament with a calf injury, losing Stones would have been an absolute disaster.
Rewinding to the opening minute against Iceland, Stones said: “I was worried at first. I knew it wasn’t my knee or my ankle, because of the mechanism in how I landed.
“It was almost like my big toe in the line straight down my foot and I thought ‘I have fractured it’. I thought the worst at the start.
“The docs made the call at half-time and maybe they made the right one in the end. I had an X-ray straight away at Wembley and then the morning after.
“I thought ‘if I’ve fractured it, I will get docs, tablets, injections, whatever’. I didn’t want to miss out.”
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Stones left Wembley with his right ankle strapped and after flying to Germany on Monday, he started to feel unwell during training in Jena.
He said: “I haven’t been that bad in . . . I could not tell you how long. I am not getting into detail though! It was a really rough 36 hours.
“I didn’t feel great the day before in the open session but thought it would pass.
“I ended up ringing the doc in the early hours of the morning after being up for a few hours as I couldn’t take it any more.
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“It was difficult because I was having hot and cold sweats. I felt quite alone, to be honest. You are not at home. No one around you.
“And then being stuck in my room all day, no food. Not much water because it was coming out again! I don’t usually get sick. If it was ever going to happen, at least it was during this week and I got back to training on Thursday.”
Panic over, now Stones must forge a strong partnership with Marc Guehi, 23. But they have only played twice together.
Aside from the Iceland game, the only other time was a humiliating 4-0 Nations League defeat by Hungary in Wolverhampton two years ago. The less said about that game, the better.
Stones, 30, said: “I don’t know what the stat is on how many games me and Harry [Maguire] have played together but it’s probably quite a lot.
“He’ll be missed as well, not only by me, but the team, people who he’s close to within the team as well. That’s the difficult part of the game.
“He’ll be upset he’s not here but it’s a great chance for other people to learn new skills, and ways of what the manager wants to implement on the training pitch.
“I’m a big fan of Marc’s. Just how he goes about his work. He is taking everything in. His quality, for his size, is good. He is strong and dominates.
“He has been an incredible player at Palace and had a big injury this season as well but I watched him come back in his first game and it was like nothing had ever happened.”
Guehi has 11 caps compared to Stones’ 72 appearances.
Yet while there is no doubt over Stones’ pedigree, he has not had a great season for Manchester City. He only started 12 Premier League games for Pep Guardiola and was an unused sub on 17 occasions.
Stones said: “It’s not how I wanted to end the season. You want to feel involved, you want to play as much as you can.
“I’ve been there and been in sticky situations enough now to know that it’s not about me it’s about the team and I was there every day trying to give the manager a headache.
“I won’t start throwing my teddy out of the pram and say ‘I should be playing’. Of course, I believe I should be playing but it’s out of my control who picks the team. I control the controllables. I’m here to help.
“A major factor of why we’ve won so many things is not one player wins for everyone.
“I played a massive role in the last season [2022-23] and what we’ve done and you’ve got to always be positive about what’s in front of you.”
