DECLAN RICE has revealed that John Stones had no idea that Man City were facing Arsenal next.
The treble winners host the Gunners on Sunday in a huge title crunch match.
Arsenal appear to have their full focus on the clash with £105m man Rice clearly keeping the match at the forefront of his mind.
While serial winners City may be taking a more relaxed approach to the head-to-head with Stones claiming he wasn’t even aware of the upcoming match.
Rice revealed to the Telegraph that he tried to chat to Stones about Sunday’s potential title decider, but was met with a clueless response from his England teammate while on international duty.
He said: “The first day I came [on England duty], I saw John Stones and he didn’t even know they were playing us next.
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“When he’s away from football he likes to be with his family and switch off and I get that, he likes to take one game at a time.
“I said ‘big game next’ and John said ‘who are you playing?’ and I said ‘we’ve got you lot!’ He said ‘oh yeah!’
“That tells you how much we speak about it when we’re here!”
Although not every City player is detached from the next fixture quite as much as Stones, with Rice revealing Kyle Walker gives him some stick about the run-in while away on England duty.
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He said: “With Walks [Kyle Walker] he always has a little bit of banter, he’s a great lad.”
Arsenal sit top of the Premier League table as things stand, but are just one point ahead of City who sit in third place.
A win for the Londoners would put some breathing room between them and their title rivals for the remaining nine games of the season.
While a City win would turn things around and put the Etihad outfit two points above Mikel Arteta’s side.
Although both sides will be keeping a keen eye on Liverpool who are currently second in the table and level on points with Arsenal – the Reds face Brighton on Sunday.
Source: Soccer - thesun.co.uk
