What happened to Jack Grealish? From Man City's £100m treble hero to Everton outcast

What happened to Jack Grealish? From Man City's £100m treble hero to Everton outcast originally appeared on The Sporting News.
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As England retreated further and further into their defensive shell, virtually demanding that Argentina put them out of their World Cup semifinal misery, everyone had an opinion on what the problem was and what Thomas Tuchel should do.

The Three Lions boss' decision to leave several high-quality players at home felt like it came home to roost as his team fell under Lionel Messi's spell and lost 2-1 from 1-0 up in Atlanta.

For those who spent plenty of time watching Pep Guardiola's treble-winning Manchester City side come together and hit top gear in 2022-23, one name that had fallen some way off the radar came to mind.

England could really have done with a fit and focused Jack Grealish.

From being a cult hero at boyhood club Aston Villa, Grealish joined City for a British-record £100 million in summer 2021. After a first season of acclimatization, he became integral to Guardiola's winning machine. Few players anywhere had his capacity to take possession, hold it and cherish it; get the team up the pitch and make the right decision to either relieve pressure or keep attacks rumbling.

England still don't have one of those players, as evidenced by the squad Tuchel announced on Friday for the November internationals. Manchester City don't, particularly, nowadays. Everton do, on loan from City, but have won their past two games with him banished from the squad.

MORE:Jack Grealish and Man City: What went wrong for £100m star?

Why is Jack Grealish not playing for Everton?

Grealish did not feature in Everton's 2-0 defeat away to Premier League champions Arsenal on October 24 due to illness. Five days later, he was unavailable for the 3-1 Carabao Cup win over Newcastle United "due to a breach of club discipline."

The 31-year-old remained sidelined for Monday's 1-0 league win at Newcastle and will not be involved when David Moyes' side welcome Coventry City to the Hill Dickinson Stadium on Friday.

“Jack’s not available,” Moyes said at his pre-match news conference. "I wouldn’t give you the plan, but we will be working with Jack again soon.”

Asked whether Grealish was presently at the club, Moyes added: “I would rather not answer your question. Right from the start, hopefully you picked up on my words. I said it was a club issue and it continues to be that.”

What's gone wrong for Jack Grealish?

Everton have kept communications tight publicly around the Grealish issue, while acknowledging that this is not simply a call from Moyes and that the Merseyside club's hierarchy are very much involved.

It has been widely reported that Grealish's discipline breach relates to an unauthorised absence from training the week after the Arsenal game. This, unfortunately, given a recurring theme around the popular attacking midfielder, aligns with a busy social calendar.

On Monday, October 19, Grealish attended the Pride of Britain awards in London. The Sun and the Daily Mail reported he continued his night at Bam Karaoke Box in Victoria, central London, afterwards. He trained with Everton the following day, before watching the Paris Saint-Germain vs. Barcelona Champions League match in a Cheshire pub alongside some teammates, including England goalkeeper Jordan Pickford.

Everton had a scheduled day off on Wednesday, so players making such use of their free time would not be unusual, within reason. The Athletic reported that Pickford was at the pub for a short while, but Grealish remained.

Pickford and Grealish are firm friends away from the field. The pair were together in March 2025 when Grealish, who was enjoying downtime after playing in Manchester City's 3-1 FA Cup win over Plymouth Argyle the previous day, put £500 behind the bar for regular punters at a social club. It was an act that underlined his everyman appeal. In an era when sports stars can feel too far removed from their public, it's hard to ever accuse Grealish of carrying such airs and graces.

These qualities, along with his abilities on the field, perhaps encourage a level of indulgence and acceptance that have brought us to this point: Grealish is more than two years removed from his previous England appearance and loaned out for the second year in succession in the final year of his City contract. At the time of the March 2025 night out, his time at City under Guardiola was basically done. Sure, he was doing nothing untoward in his free time, but a manager who had gone out to bat for him in public so many times no longer felt he could rely on him. Niggling injuries and absences had piled up, game time dwindled.

Jack Grealish stats since joining Man City in 2021

The easy picture to paint of Grealish's time at City is one of six months of excellence as they swept to the treble, surrounded by not very much of note. But even in those final two years, Guardiola's team were generally better balanced if he could get Grealish on the pitch in top form. The issue was getting him there.

When injuries hit the squad during the middle of the 2023-24 season, Grealish helped keep City's bid for a record fourth consecutive Premier League title on track and was integral to them winning the Club World Cup. By the end of the season, he had disappeared from view, was not included in the matchday squad for the FA Cup final defeat to Manchester United and missed out on Euro 2024 with England.

There was also the February 2025 clash with Real Madrid. Despite not starting him in a Premier League match during that calendar year, Guardiola selected Grealish on the wing to face City's familiar Champions League foes. He was superb, played a brilliant pass that led to Erling Haaland's opening goal … then came off injured in the 30th minute and his team lost 3-2. He started one more Premier League game for the rest of the season, in a heavily rotated lineup against a Leicester City side doomed to relegation.

"Grealish’s problems haven’t been technical, tactical, or due to a lack of trust from [Guardiola], who clearly loves the player," a source told The Sporting News that summer. "I think we all know that Jack’s issues have been of a different nature. And yes, it’s a shame."

It was also a shame when paparazzi photographed Grealish asleep at a Manchester rooftop bar in April. At the time, he was recovering from the foot injury that ended his initially restorative 2025/26 season at Everton. It's understood that senior figures at the club were not unanimous in thinking that bringing Grealish back to Merseyside for a second season on loan was a great idea, even as Iliman Ndiaye's move to City created an obvious space for the move to happen.

Guardiola's City successor Enzo Maresca spoke warmly of a player who "has a big heart and is a very good guy" when asked about Grealish at his first City press conference this July. He even fielded him as a substitute in the Community Shield loss to Arsenal and Premier League win over Bournemouth in August. Grealish spoke about how fond he was of Maresca, one of Guardiola's assistants during the treble season, but a rekindled long-term footballing relationship was never on the cards.

"D'you know how good Jack is?" Declan Rice, after he and Grealish each scored in England's 3-1 Nations League win in Finland in October 2024. Rice was on the Ballon d'Or list this year and pivotal to Arsenal's Premier League success; Grealish has not played for England since.

"You watch him in training and you watch him in games, he's got something that's really special as a football player. And I'm not just saying that because he's one of my best friends in football.

"The way he takes the ball under pressure and takes touches and relieves you of pressure as a team is just incredible. I'm buzzing for him because when we've got a Jack Grealish who's happy and smiling and playing well, he's a massive boost for England."

Those days seem very far away now. Happy and smiling and playing well has become a faded, flickering memory for one of England's finest talents of this generation. Rice's initial question leads you to wonder whether Grealish himself truly knows and respects how good he is. 

A player who seemed overawed initially by sharing a dressing room with the likes of Kevin De Bruyne at City looks stuck in a loop of bad luck and self-sabotage. Plenty of people, at various points and grappling with various reservations, have decided he was worth another chance. Right now, it feels like Grealish needs all the support he can get to reach the point where he deems himself worth the hassle, worthy of the unwritten final chapters of a career slipping away.

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