Jack Grealish | Man City

[Trequarista10]

I picked that because I agreed with the rest, duh. You framed that sentence as an open question, and I gave you my take on it. And I also didn't mean to play him in the middle(though yes, that would have worked better). I meant City could have run more of their attack through him, the way Guardiola's Bayern run its attack through Robben/Ribery(and Douglas Costa)

As for the last point: I'm so bored

Fair enough

 

[Lyng]

Jack has been fine but his productivity is compltely on him. When Doku plays left wing he took people on, so did Foden, Sterling and Sane before him. Even Gvaridol does when he plays left back. The truth is Jack had 18 month of good output in his entire career. He's a fine football but bar a purple patch is not an end product kind of guy. Also the spaces where he excelled for Villa in said purple patch are spaces not given to City who usually face team with 4 in front or a 5 or 5 in front of a 4 who are pinned back. He's just not and never has been the guy people think he was based on that one spell.

He's a strong runner and very good at protecting the ball. At City his attacking and final 3rd flaws have been laid bare against stacked defences. Nothing was coached out of him. Pep has said himself, he coaches the team from box to box on where to be. What they do in the final quarter of the pitch is completely on the player. Something thats ben backed up by Henry and others who have played under him.

Grealish is a hard worker but limited player in terms of output.

This is a guy who managed 14 goals and 16 assits in 3 seasons in the championship and whos best season in the Premier League is 16 goal contributions. He has only once in his career scord over 6 league goals in a season. He's just not hte guy people who watched his highlight reels at Villa think he was.

This matches my feelings on him, but given I dont watch City week in, week out I wondered if I was missing something...

 

[duffer]

His fee doesn’t get talked about enough. Yet Antony gets criticised a lot. Wonder why…

There's a few reasons why.
1, the three seasons since Grealish signed for Man City, they won the league in all three seasons. They also won the champions league with Grealish starting the final. That kinda wild success silences most criticism that would be thrown at a clubs spending.

2, 100 million isn't as big a deal for Man City as it is for Man United.

3, Man United get way, way more coverage than Man City in England and all around the world. That goes for criticism as well as praise.

4, Grealish hasn't been anywhere near as bad as Antony.

 

[Grande]

You can't use the first sentence as a run-on and not see the contradiction, surely? Every human on the planet gets better by doing, repetitively and expediently until they are determined masters of a skill/craft. By removing the opportunities to even explore that element of his game, Grealish is reduced - or marginalised - as a specialist with a specific job to do in the team, one he's the best in the entire league at, and very probably the reason he was targeted by City in the first place, but a specific job nonetheless.

Your posts highlight it - get from point A to point B and then pass it to someone better than you are at the next phase. This can be considered optimisation, because, in a way, it is. But it can also be considered marginalisation because there's a glass ceiling to what Grealish is allowed to do and what is frowned upon because his attempt from that point onward can be taken on by - in your own words - someone better than him in the next third of the pitch.

This can be seen as a matter of perspective - is Grealish better or worse for being optimised? By removing all form of expression, but having him run like a battery at what he is exceptional at, is he a better or worse player? An underutilised one, or not? If we were using American Football terminology, Grealish is/was a sure thing as a yard gainer, which is an invaluable asset for any team, not just Guardiola's. Having a player that 9/10 times can gain you 30+ yards is a cheat code in itself for the sheer consistency of it. In the minds of those who went out and got what Guardiola asked for (some form of yard gainer, I'm sure), City were provided with an asset that really allowed and afforded them to play in a different way, that, in part, was less team-based, as Grealish could gain those umpteen yards by himself, instead of by how City used to progress those same yards as a unit, which takes time, effort and a lot more pieces optimally in place to accomplish.

Guardiola has said himself that ball carriers and dribblers are the cheat code for what they enable a team to do in a fraction of the time, and in his world, it makes perfect sense to have used Grealish as he did, with him passing the baton off when he got to the - for him - hard yards. At other clubs, under managers who don't see the game in such a binary fashion, the "Villa Grealish" goes on to a bigger club and isn't anywhere near as efficient as Guardiola made him, but becomes a better version of the player he got to that club as. Better decision making; better understanding of the game; better understanding of self and when and what to do in certain positions/situations via the aforementioned honed and refined practice, etc. etc.

As I've said to you before, Grealish is the other side of the coin of system cog verses expression; he and Foden, both, on opposite ends of the spectrum, which makes them perfect case studies. One cannot determine whether the Grealish we got to see is better/worse than the one who made his name. We can say that Guardiola brought him success and made him an important and essential cog. But it can be said with utmost certainty that Guardiola made him boring, predictable and perfunctory - do what you're good at, and don't dare overstep your mark. It's the very definition of expressionism lost, even if we understand why and the [clear & vital] benefit of it.

Through the eyes of a fan of flamboyance and expression, Guardiola getting his hands on this type of player - one he deems exceptional for one thing, but not good enough for the other - it's got to be seen as a loss "to the game" because one stem of free-flowing expressionism has been lost, and another Grealish then has to take on the mantle because the one that was there no longer has his. The problem here is, Grealish's don't come around often, which is why it's going to be seen as sad when one is lost to the system despite the success it brought the club who purchased him.

Good post

 

[ROFLUTION]

There's a few reasons why.
1, the three seasons since Grealish signed for Man City, they won the league in all three seasons. They also won the champions league with Grealish starting the final. That kinda wild success silences most criticism that would be thrown at a clubs spending.

2, 100 million isn't as big a deal for Man City as it is for Man United.

3, Man United get way, way more coverage than Man City in England and all around the world. That goes for criticism as well as praise.

4, Grealish hasn't been anywhere near as bad as Antony.

I know it's a wild thought to entertain, but Grealish has had 2 seasons at City that are close to Antony's here at United. First one very similar with minutes and output (3+3 vs 4+2). It's balanced out by one "good" Grealish season with 5 goals and 10 assists (the treble season).

It's probably wishful thinking, but imagine if Amorim gets some end product out of Antony. The comparison might not be that wild after all.

That's output wise though. It's a bit easier on the eye to watch Grealish receive the ball, drag a few meters in and pass it on in a system where that is what you do, than it is to watch Antony try a lot and not progressing play fast.

 

[B20]

Part of it is coaching, but I think another part is just confidence, mentality and hierarchy.

No one would mind if he gave the ball away at Villa, because he was top dog and a bit of risk in transition was fine anyway.

City as a team are more risk averse, but also it matters where you are in the hierarchy if you up the risk. No one minds if De Bruyne loses it, because he does amazing stuff on the regular. If Grealish starts giving it away too much because he wants to show he's billy big bollocks, that doesn't go down the same way, with crowd and team mates alike. And I think Grealish never managed to navigate that and ended up just playing within himself and settling for "at least I did what the manager asked in the tactics meeting."

One thing I liked about Klopp was that he, like Ferguson, absolutely adored forwards and the plan was all about giving them opportunities to do their thing. Midfielders had to STFU, work hard and stay in their lane, so that the forwards could strut their stuff. Polar opposite of Guardiola in that way. Grealish would have been coached very differently under Klopp or Ferguson.

 

[KeanoMagicHat]

You don’t even have to look back that far, Grealish trusted in the middle as a number 10 under Carsley for England for those few games and he looked a different player altogether. City was a good move for his bank account and trophies but not for his game. Wasted talent.

 

[didz]

I see a lot of eloquent post here about his abilities at City vs Villa, but just cutting to the bone - he's a bit overrated isn't he?

Stats from Transfermarkt:

At City:
142 matches 14 goals scored 20 assists

At Villa:
213 matches 32 goals scored 41 assists

Looking season by season in Premier League (In Champions League he does nothing: 1g+2a) his best season at Villa was 6 goals and 12 assists.

At City his best season was 5 goals and 10 assists. The remaining seasons are just pretty shitty in output really.

Yet he's constantly talked about what a star he is.

Any chance you're looking at Grealish's numbers in the context of Villa as they are now and not what they were when he'd just dragged them kicking and screaming into the Premier League while being punched in the back of the head?

 

[hellhunter]

I see a lot of eloquent post here about his abilities at City vs Villa, but just cutting to the bone - he's a bit overrated isn't he?

Stats from Transfermarkt:

At City:
142 matches 14 goals scored 20 assists

At Villa:
213 matches 32 goals scored 41 assists

Looking season by season in Premier League (In Champions League he does nothing: 1g+2a) his best season at Villa was 6 goals and 12 assists.

At City his best season was 5 goals and 10 assists. The remaining seasons are just pretty shitty in output really.

Yet he's constantly talked about what a star he is.

This is a good post, but I think it's tricky to judge Grealish for Villa by numbers, similar to how Cantona's effect can't really be boiled down to goals and assists.

 

[ROFLUTION]

Any chance you're looking at Grealish's numbers in the context of Villa as they are now and not what they were when he'd just dragged them kicking and screaming into the Premier League while being punched in the back of the head?

It's a fair point, but I'd also argue that he was great for that one season at Villa where he shined against big opponents on matchday TV for everyone to see.

8 goals and 7 assists in the season before was quite decent too but many other players have done that too in a season without being touted as talismanic. (Semenyo last season for comparison 8goals 4 assists in 2000 minutes where Grealish did 8+7 in 3200 minutes of gametime).

But yeah you can't always put numbers on everything - he did seem to have a big impact when watching (mostly watched the big games myself, so there's also that). I just find it a bit intriguing that his output was never that big.

He looked great that season at Villa, and he had great calves and a flamboyant style with wannabe David Beckham-hair to match. Maybe he was just blown up to be a little bit more than he really was by fans and media, when he just had 1 outlier season? Hard to say where it had ended at Villa though. Coming to City did seem like he was contained in a bad way.

 

[RedDevil@84]

Has he contributed any better than Antony with us? He costed more than Antony though.

 

[didz]

It's a fair point, but I'd also argue that he was great for that one season at Villa where he shined against big opponents on matchday TV for everyone to see.

8 goals and 7 assists in the season before was quite decent too but many other players have done that too in a season without being touted as talismanic. (Semenyo last season for comparison 8goals 4 assists in 2000 minutes where Grealish did 8+7 in 3200 minutes of gametime).

But yeah you can't always put numbers on everything - he did seem to have a big impact when watching (mostly watched the big games myself, so there's also that). I just find it a bit intriguing that his output was never that big.

Honestly I do think Grealish was a phenomenal player for Villa in a way that the goal/assist numbers just don't capture. That side that came into the league had El Ghazi, Trezeguet, and Wesley as their attackers, as well as three keepers getting themselves dropped every other week. It was a shocking side that didn't have much business getting promoted in the first place. But Grealish was unusually consistent for a flair player and pretty much impossible to get the ball off for a good couple of years.

@Fortitude's yard gainer analogy is a good one - he took so much pressure off the back line and gave Villa a chance in games they had no right to be contending, which was practically all of them. There's only really two reasons Aston Villa are a Premier League side at all these days - shit tech and Jack Grealish.

 

[giorno]

See I agree with what @B20 said, but also, when you look closer, Grealish doesn't actually play particularly different at City than he did at Villa. The differences are almost entirely down to the tactical context he operates in and his role in it

 

[ROFLUTION]

Honestly I do think Grealish was a phenomenal player for Villa in a way that the goal/assist numbers just don't capture. That side that came into the league had El Ghazi, Trezeguet, and Wesley as their attackers, as well as three keepers getting themselves dropped every other week. It was a shocking side that didn't have much business getting promoted in the first place. But Grealish was unusually consistent for a flair player and pretty much impossible to get the ball off for a good couple of years.

@Fortitude's yard gainer analogy is a good one - he took so much pressure off the back line and gave Villa a chance in games they had no right to be contending, which was practically all of them. There's only really two reasons Aston Villa are a Premier League side at all these days - shit tech and Jack Grealish.

Definitely. It was also the football he thrived in - football with loads of space and counter attacks. When having to show it in a major side who doesn't sit back and where he has to operate in tight spaces, he simply gets found out / falls short, because he doesn't have that much more to his game than having a good shot on him and being able to dribble on the counter. He looks a bit of a one-trick pony at City, where that one-trick doesn't come off.

Every player is just better with heaps of space in a side where everyone passes to you at the same time. City simply overpaid by a big margin imo. He's simply a guy who works better as a big fish in a small pond and I can understand the Zaha comparison. City could've bought so many better players in tight spaces for Pep's system. A system where highly techical and quick players like Mahrez and Foden are the ideal players.

 

[Camilo]

I don't know how he'd fit in at United now, but I'm still a big fan of his and think he's been wasted a little at City.

 

[KeanoMagicHat]

This is a good post, but I think it's tricky to judge Grealish for Villa by numbers, similar to how Cantona's effect can't really be boiled down to goals and assists.

Saw a stat there yesterday that Cantona got 10 goals, 10 assists 4 times out of 5 seasons with United, despite having a 8 month suspension in there. Only 4 players in the past 30 years have more seasons of 10 goals/10 assists+. So while I agree he was more than stats, he actually had quite good stats too.

 

[hellhunter]

Saw a stat there yesterday that Cantona got 10 goals, 10 assists 4 times out of 5 seasons with United, despite having a 8 month suspension in there. Only 4 players in the past 30 years have more seasons of 10 goals/10 assists+. So while I agree he was more than stats, he actually had quite good stats too.

Maybe a poor example then, fair enough!

 

[DarkLord1984]

Held up 3 fingers to show the Villa fans how many titles his club has cheated their way to since he joined them.

Perhaps he should have held up 9 fingers to show how many defeats they've had in the last 12 games.

 

[BorisManUtd]

For 100 million he's really been poor. Won't be regretting the move as he won everything there but was obviously much better at Villa.