How Grealish fell back to earth
Struggling for motivation after Treble glory, victim of a break-in and dropped in favour of deadly Doku. Now, just as he was finding form, injury strikes and his Euros place is thrown into doubt...
IN A way, that Jack Grealish insisted on playing on said it all. Even though he instantly knew the injury was muscular, and had been thumping the turf in agony, he wanted to give it another go.
Against the wishes of Pep Guardiola, who appeared to be telling the winger that he had nothing to prove and not to do any further damage. In the end, Grealish lasted another 90 seconds before begging Manchester City team-mates to boot the ball into the stand so he could join it.
Guardiola is right and wrong with that assessment. Grealish has nothing but everything to prove and the distraught look as he realised his night in Copenhagen was over felt instructive.
Crucial in the Treble, and becoming the defining image of that success as he basked in the Manchester rain during their parade, Grealish has not hit anywhere near the same heights this season, one that has included a traumatic break-in at his new Cheshire home — he’s bought two protection dogs — and now a court appearance for a driving offence.
Only seven Premier League starts and Tuesday night had been the first time Guardiola picked him for over a month. It can’t be particularly easy watching Kevin De Bruyne roar back after six months out and have the manager compare him to a fine wine.
So the opportunity in the Champions League was something Grealish wanted to grab and for it to end after 21 minutes summed up a campaign that has never got going. He has cut a frustrated figure in training recently, desperate to play. Frustrated enough for Guardiola to remark upon it. It’s not like gregarious dressing room DJ Grealish to allow that to show.
The players have noticed too. ‘Maybe he’s a bit down that he didn’t play as much but he’s still fighting,’ Nathan Ake said earlier this week. Grealish had clearly channelled that in a more productive way in the build-up to the last-16 first leg on a night when Guardiola picked arguably his best starting XI.
Grealish always finds a place in the best team — especially at this stage of the season. The games will become tighter, City will face better opposition more regularly and his unique style of control from the left-hand side is something Guardiola requires. He’s always there for the big games.
With three goals and two assists in 26 games, Grealish has never troubled the scorers — and never will — in terms of goal contributions but has constantly offered more in other areas. The balance he brings, the slowing down of games with the perfect tempo, are valuable commodities to a team who strangle others with possession.
This is why it is not only him who anxiously waits the results of tests for the groin injury. City need him. But weeks out now could severely affect his prospects of being fully involved when the silverware starts to shimmer because once Guardiola settles on a formula at the business end, it is very hard for anyone to change it. That is the challenge Grealish faces.
And that will have the 28-yearold thinking about the summer, about the England squad for the European Championship. He will be there in Germany but at the moment he does not get into Gareth Southgate’s preferred side. That position, supplying Harry Kane off the left flank, is one that really is up for grabs.
Marcus Rashford has had ups and downs this year. There is a clamour for Phil Foden to operate with Jude Bellingham in the middle. Raheem Sterling appears to be out of the picture. Does James Maddison find himself squeezed in over there? Jarrod Bowen has been knocking around. Cole Palmer is not a natural on that side.
None of it is fixed, providing Southgate with probably his biggest headache, and this run up to the tournament should be Grealish’s shop window. All of this and more was worn on his face on Parken’s touchline. He had barely perked up while walking out with Foden to board the team bus two hours later.
And yet, the drama surrounding his early exit was only exacerbated because of the previous six months and a sense that Grealish is playing catch-up. He had found Jeremy Doku, the electric and unpredictable Belgian, ahead of him as City attempted to bed the youngster in. City were becoming more direct, using more runners with the ball — embodied by the £55million summer signing from Rennes whose primary function is to embarrass full backs. Oscar Bobb is snapping at their heels too.
Doku’s arrival coincided with a dip in Grealish’s form — and a dead leg, leaving him unable to walk — after the heroics of last year. There are some in this squad who can easily forget, can easily move on to the next thing. Grealish is not one of them and there is an acceptance at City that it has taken him far longer to shake off the Treble than others.
Plenty of Guardiola’s stars are used to winning every year but for Grealish, to lift everything after a career spent at Aston Villa was harder to process.
‘I am not saying it is hard to get motivated, you can’t say that,’ he said on England duty a few months back. ‘But when you’ve done it, it’s kind of like, “What now?”.’
In November, Guardiola said he wanted him ‘angry’ at a lack of starts. He had seen him perform superbly during the victory at Old Trafford — ‘Jack is back, he gave us more composure’ — only for displays to drop off.
An encouraging appearance at Everton helped them win the game over New Year before he was once again out of the team following an average afternoon against Sheffield United. There has been no real consistency. Grealish would argue he has not been afforded the chance to build consistency.
‘This season was not like last season but he’s getting better,’ Guardiola said last week. ‘Lately he is getting better. He’s doing the steps to get to his best level and now is competing with players at a high level.’
That seemed bang on during the opening exchanges in Copenhagen, with Grealish knitting City together, only for yet another setback. It is just not happening for him at the moment — as everyone around him flourishes.