⚽️Football Pep Guardiola and his Manchester City players head back to the UK after their Champions League final win against Inter Milan

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It was in fact early in the season, before the World Cup, during which he shone as a traditional centre-back for England, that Guardiola began to experiment with Stones, using him as an inverted right-back while Kyle Walker was recovering from a groin injury.

Stones was of course not the first player to be used by Guardiola in that position, the purpose of which is to allow City to outnumber their opponents in midfield and push their wingers high and wide, while also being compact enough to deal with counter-attacks.

But this was not like Rico Lewis, Oleksandr Zinchenko or Joao Cancelo playing the role. Stones could provide the same level of composure and technique as those players in possession, but crucially he came to it as a "proper defender", to use Guardiola's term.

City, already using Ake on the opposite side, immediately became more solid, but it was only in March that Stones' role morphed into its current guise. Suddenly, he looked more like a midfielder occasionally dropping in at right-back than a right-back popping up in midfield.

The change of emphasis can be traced back to City's 7-0 thrashing of RB Leipzig in the second leg of their last-16 tie at the Etihad Stadium on March 14, when Stones started alongside Rodri for the first time, ahead of a back three of Manuel Akanji, Dias and Ake.

His performance in that game was flawless. Literally. He did not misplace a single pass. His 63rd-minute substitution, intended to conserve his energy, hinted at his growing importance to Guardiola.

Between that point and the end of the campaign, during the small hours of the night in Istanbul, Manchester City kept eight clean sheets in 20 fixtures - the last of which came when it was most needed - and never conceded more than one goal, with Stones a ubiquitous presence.

Erling Haaland and Kevin De Bruyne went down as the star performers, finishing first and second respectively in the PFA Player of the Year voting, but the security provided by Stones' switch into the centre was arguably the bigger factor in City's success.