John Stones was being ‘wound up’ by his Manchester City teammates including Benjamin Mendy in the lead-up to their FA Cup tie against Port Vale.
This is according to Vale striker Tom Pope, who made an outlandish claim about Stones last summer.
Pope said he would score ’40 goals a season’ if he played against Stones every week following the defender’s two costly errors in England’s Nations League defeat to the Netherlands.
He tweeted: “Just watched the highlights of the England game!
“I know I’m a league 2 player, I know he plays for England, I know he’s on £150K a week, I know he’s a million times better player than me but I’d love to play against John Stones every week!
“I’d get 40 a season! #soft #weakasp***”.
So when the League Two side got drawn against the FA Cup champions in the third round, Pope had the chance to prove once and for all if he could score against Stones.
And with both players on the pitch, amazingly, Pope scored and made the tweet come true.
The goal understandably meant a lot to Pope, which actually brought Port Vale level after Oleksandr Zinchenko had put Pep Guardiola’s men in front.
When asked if Stones said anything to Pope during or after the match, he told talkSPORT: “He’s pied me!
“Benjamin Mendy’s just said they’ve all been winding him up for weeks so I don’t think he’s been very happy with me.
“But it was only banter at the end of the day. I know what it’s like when you’ve got all of your teammates hammering you, it can be quite hard.
“I’m sure he’ll forgive me.”
Pope and Port Vale’s joy was short-lived as Sergio Aguero restored Man City’s lead just before half time.
The Premier League side showed their class after the break and sealed a 4-1 victory thanks to goals from Taylor Harwood-Bellis and Phil Foden.
And Pope was happy to get on the scoresheet but was disappointed it didn’t affect the result.
He added: “It’s a good occasion. It’s very rare as a League Two player that you get to play in games like this so you just have to embrace it.
“It’s up there – gutted it didn’t mean anything really but I don’t think any goal I’d have scored here would have got us anything.”
