Sad tale of an entertainer turned middling curiosity

Jack Grealish has sacrificed flair for silverware at City but as he returns home to Villa Park, he'll wonder if it was worth it

- RICHARD JOLLY

Txiki Begiristain was looking forward to being entertained. Manchester City, often dubbed big spenders, had spent more than any other English club previously had on one player. They had made Jack Grealish the £100m man. Their director of football called his costliest recruit “one of the most exciting attacking players in world football”.

Three-and-a-half years later, Grealish returns to Aston Villa tomorrow as, arguably, neither an attacking player nor an exciting one. Instead, a maverick has been reinvented as a curiosity, a Pep Guardiola project who now does far fewer of the things often associated with excitement – score goals, make them, run at defenders – than he used to. There are those at Villa Park who will recognise a local accent and see a familiar face. But the player they might see is rather different.

A more successful one, Guardiola may argue, an individualist who became part of a champion team. Grealish may have sacrificed some of the flair, but he got silverware in return. In the glow of the treble, it seemed a fine trade-off. Now? Perhaps not.

Grealish has been at City since August 2021. He has only played particularly well for one of those seasons, 2022-23. Last year, he found form for a month, from the end of December, and around 10 days this spring. His form otherwise explained his omission from England’s Euro 2024 squad. He may have been luckless with ill-timed injuries this season and the statistics again show City lose a lower percentage of games he starts, but his recent achievements end there.