THE GREAL DEAL
Jack repays Pep’s faith, but he still needs to beef it up... SIMONMULLOCK
JACK GREALISH has confessed that he likes to take a bit of a kicking. He reckons it makes him play better.
Maybe that’s why Pep Guardiola gave his £100million midfielder the nod at Molineux after a week when the boot really went in over Grealish’s failure to give Manchester City enough bang for their buck.
It certainly worked. Perhaps Pep knows best, hey?
In fact, it took Grealish just 53 seconds to repay his manager’s faith and answer the critics.
And how he enjoyed doing it in front of fans who will always have him down as a bona fide Villan.
Phil Foden and Kevin De Bruyne combined down the right in City’s first attack.
And although De Bruyne’s low cross was too strong for Erling Haaland as he arrived at the near post, it was perfect for Grealish to steer in his first goal of the season.
Injuries meant this was only his second Premier League start of the campaign.
But Grealish scored just six times and conjured up only four assists after arriving from Villa last summer and he knows he will have to beef up those stats if he wants to be taken seriously. The Brummie certainly played his part back on familiar West Midlands soil as City moved to the top of the table with some ease.
Wolves had to play the last hour with 10 men after Nathan Collins was sent off for an ugly challenge on Grealish that threatened to cut him off at the hip. But by then it was virtually game over.
Haaland had strode forward like a marauding Viking, ponytail flapping behind him, to put City two-up in the 15th minute.
The Norwegian certainly isn’t struggling to live up to the hype. This was his 14th goal of a season that is starting to look ominous for the rest of the division.
Haaland threatened to add to his impressive tally every time he got a sight of Wolves keeper Jose Sa.
And he also showed he is a maker as well as a taker by brilliantly linking up with De Bruyne as the Belgian provided the cross for Foden to score in the second half.
With Ruben Neves dropping back to play as an emergency centre-back after Collins’ departure, Bruno Lage would have been worried that the beating could have become a rout that might cost a manager their job.
But with City playing in second gear after the break, they only had Foden’s smartly worked goal in the 68th minute. Soon after,
Guardiola sent on
Ilkay Gundogan, Riyad Mahrez and Julian Alvarez as substitutes. Talk about flexing your muscles. When Grealish was later replaced by 20-year-old Cole Palmer, he left with a wave to the Wolves fans on the South Bank giving him grief.
Molineux paid tribute to The Queen before kick-off with a silence that was observed impeccably by those supporters in their seats.
Unfortunately, it was broken by some City fans who had opted for one more pint on the concourse and without the brains to realise that the ceremony was taking place.
Wolves were one of English football’s giants when The Queen’s reign began 70 years ago.
In 1952, Collins might have got the benefit of the doubt for the gruesome challenge that poleaxed Grealish.
He pleaded to referee Anthony Taylor that when he smashed into the midfielder’s stomach with all six studs it was accidental.
It may have been. But in the modern game it was a red card every day of the week. Grealish lifted up his shirt to show the damage to the home fans suggesting he was faking it.
He looked like the real deal.