BALE FLIES IN TO TIE UP TOTTENHAM DEAL
I worry about his progress if he’s not at top club
JACK GREALISH blew me away the first time I trained with him. He was 20 back then, a young lad bursting with confidence who played football with the ease of the best kid in the schoolyard.
It all came so naturally. I’ve never seen anyone be able to dribble as he does, how he dances around a man without needing a trick. Along with Daniel Sturridge and Michael Johnson, my old Manchester City team-mates, Jack is one of the top three young players I’ve played with. He’s that good.
You should also know how much he loves Aston Villa. He has been there since he was six, he’s a fan living out every other supporter’s dream. Jack is their leader and the news he has signed a bumper new contract this week gave everyone a huge lift. He’s over the moon and deserves the rewards.
Personally, I’m delighted for him. He’s a lovely lad who you cannot help but like. I’m impressed, too, with the way Villa have invested this summer and I’m confident they will stay up again.
It’s a huge help that all questions about his future have been put aside. He is going to thrive.
Part of me wonders, though, whether this deal means he has missed his chance to play for a top Premier League club. Manchester United’s interest in him was well trailed through the summer but, for one reason or another, speculation did not result in a move to Old Trafford.
Plenty of clubs have looked at Jack down the years. My understanding is there was some recent interest from Manchester City and if anyone had asked my opinion, my reply would have been short: ‘Sign him!’ I’m not being disrespectful to Villa, I’m just saying he has what it takes to play at the very top.
I was told Tottenham also bid in the region of £15million for him in 2018, which Villa deemed too low. Maybe £5m more would have been enough and you have to think that such an investment would now have been worth treble that. That’s how much he has progressed.
Yet it’s fair to question how far his progression at Villa can go. His situation reminds me a little bit of when I was emerging at City. When I was 19 and 20, the City of then was not the City of now. I was regarded as one of the best players in the team and there was a lot of interest. Liverpool and Chelsea both wanted to sign me — Manchester United were also eager though there was never any chance of City doing a deal with them.
I’d been in the England squad for a couple of years but something inside me meant I didn’t want to leave all I knew at City.
Fortunately, everything turned out well. City found significant investment and I ended up winning the Premier League a few years later, but I know that had fate taken a different course, my career could have gone differently and I could have regretted not leaving.
That is the one thing I don’t want for Jack and how Villa fare in the coming years will dictate how he’ll look back on this decision. In those first sessions at Bodymoor Heath, Villa’s training ground, I could see an England player in the making.
If you had asked me then how many caps he would have had by the age of 25, I’d certainly have hoped it would be more than the one cap he received in Denmark 12 days ago. He was called up as a result of withdrawals. He needs to be called up because Gareth Southgate can’t resist his claims.
Jack has had some issues away from the pitch, but nothing has ever come from malice. When he is with his mates, he is just one of the lads and I don’t think he realises sometimes how much people are interested in the things he does.
He is the best thing to happen at Villa for a decade and the leader of the dressing room. Jack is at a big club with a rich tradition but inevitably it would be a different experience for him were he to move to one of the clubs currently at the top of the table.
I am totally convinced he has got the talent to be at the top level.
I’m delighted for him on a personal level that he is happy and has reached an agreement with the club. Still, part of me — and I expect many other football fans
— would be intrigued to see him on the biggest stage.
Will he be one of the few in the modern game to stay at one club his whole career? Maybe so. If he does, then the fans will regard him as one of the all-time legends.
Loyalty isn’t easily found in the game these days and there’s something refreshing about his decision.
It broke his heart to lose the Carabao Cup final in March. A career is short and opportunities to win medals don’t come along so often. My hope is he’ll be remembered one day not just for loyalty and playing a lot of games.
His talent means he should be remembered as a winner.