John Stones wants to continue playing with Chelsea's Gary Cahill in England team

Partnership: John Stones (pictured) would like to continue playing with Gary Cahill for England
Getty Images
Vaishali Bhardwaj6 October 2016

John Stones has revealed he would like to continue playing alongside Gary Cahill in the heart of England's defence, saying the Chelsea centre-back's experience has helped him develop his own skills.

Gareth Southgate will take charge of his first England game since replacing Sam Allardyce as manager last week, when England host Malta at Wembley Stadium on Saturday.

In Allardyce's only match in charge of the Three Lions - a last-gasp victory over Slovakia in early September - Stones played alongside Cahill in central defence just a month after the 22-year-old sealed a £47.5million move to Manchester City from Everton.

Stones has been in impressive form for Pep Guardiola's side this season while, in contrast, Cahill has endured a tough past few weeks at Chelsea - the club Stones came close to joining last summer.

The Blues defender, who could earn his 50th cap for England should he feature against Malta on Saturday and then Slovenia next week, insists he is trying to improve his patchy form of late.

And Stones has admitted he wants to continue learning from the 30-year-old in the England set-up despite calls for Chris Smalling to start in central defence on Saturday.

When asked whether he sees his partnership with Cahill continuing, Stones said: "I'd like to.

"Always playing with an experienced player is good, learning new things, with whoever I play with.

"Whether it's Jags [Phil Jagielka], Chris [Smalling], sometimes you're not going to play and watching from the sidelines, watching those guys, trying to improve off them I suppose. They've been here, got a lot of caps, played a lot of games for club as well.

"Whatever partnership plays for England is always a strong one because the training we do and how we work in training is always different combinations so we all know how each other play."

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