England coach Gareth Southgate speaks up to defend the rumors of him allegedly using Manchester City players so they get injured in the field as John Stones suffer an injury at international duty during England vs Belgium match

John Stones was the most recent important Manchester City player to get hurt while playing for England against Belgium. He was out for only ten minutes of the game.

On Tuesday, Gareth Southgate explained why he chose to play John Stones for England. He said that other important players for Manchester City, Liverpool, and Arsenal had been used in the same way.

During the international break, Pep Guardiola told his players to be smart about how many minutes they played for their countries since they were all playing matches. Erling Haaland said that the manager joked with his team that he would “come after them” if anyone got hurt.

Ederson, Kevin De Bruyne, and Jack Grealish all stayed at City to recover from injuries. As a result, Kyle Walker had to pull out of England service after limping off in the loss to Brazil with what looked like a hamstring injury. Then, on Tuesday, Stones started the game against Belgium but had to leave early because of trouble.

After the game, Southgate gave an update on Stones and claimed that he had been rushed back or overused this week. To make his point, he used Erling Haaland, Martin Odegaard, and Virgil van Dijk.

He said, “We measure everything.” “The first game wasn’t very intense.” The Netherlands did the same thing with Virgil van Dijk and Nathan Ake, and Norway did the same thing with Martin Odegaard and Erling Haaland. We only get that when there’s a question about it.

“Of course, we’re upset if he’s having trouble. It looks like it’s in the area of the attacker. He didn’t play for two weeks before coming in, so it’s not because he has too much to do. But I hate sending hurt players back to their teams.”

After Stones and Walker, Manu Akanji’s injury kept him out of Switzerland’s friendly against Ireland, which made it harder for City to get ready for their game against Arsenal on Sunday. Matheus Nunes also didn’t play in Portugal’s loss to Slovenia. Reports in Portugal said he had been moaning about a problem with his foot this week.

Even though De Bruyne and Grealish were seen working earlier this week, City still has seven injured players who aren’t sure if they will be able to play against Arsenal: Ederson, Akanji, Stones, Walker, De Bruyne, Nunes, and Grealish. The players should be back at City tomorrow. On Wednesday morning, Julian Alvarez played 90 minutes for Argentina in Los Angeles.