Manchester City beat Tottenham in the Premier League, but once again Jack Grealish was among the substitutes.
Since Jack Grealish came off the bench to score for Manchester City at Paris Saint-Germain in January, he has started just two of the following nine games. One was at Leyton Orient.
The other – a surprise start against Real Madrid a few days later – was cut short by injury after just half an hour to end a promising 120 minutes where Grealish may have felt like the tide was turning.
But that injury summed up his last 18 months at City. Lots of stops and not enough starts. His minute at Tottenham was only four games later yet he’s back at the bottom of the ladder again and has to climb back up.
His record going further back is even more concerning.
He has not started a Premier League game since before Christmas, with only 13 of his 29 appearances this term being starts – three of those in the cups against lower league opposition. He has just six Premier League starts in total and has completed 90 minutes just twice in the league.
Take away his goal and four assists against Salford, Orient and Watford in those cups games and Grealish has provided just one goal and one assist in the other 26 matches – a goal at PSG and assist for Josko Gvardiol at Newcastle in September in the league.
Grealish has been an afterthought as a late substitute against Arsenal twice, Tottenham twice, Liverpool and Manchester United once each. He wasn’t even used in games against Chelsea, Arsenal and Liverpool, plus the second leg with Real Madrid.
An unused substitute as many times as he has started, Grealish hasn’t started a ‘Big Six’ game all season. City haven’t won in games Grealish has started against Inter Milan, Juventus, Feyenoord, Real Madrid, Newcastle and Villa.
Injuries don’t help, but Guardiola clearly wants more from his winger and has publicly challenged him to do so. Fast forward to Tottenham on Wednesday and nobody ever really expected him to start.
Jeremy Doku kept his place after tormenting Trent Alexander-Arnold at the weekend with the impressive Savinho on the other side. “The three up front is the future,” said Guardiola after the game, referring to Doku, Savinho and Erling Haaland.
“For sure is the future. We have a young young team. Nico and when Rodri comes back is the future. Of course Khusanov, you see it today. Josko is young. But Bernardo, Gundogan, Kevin are really important for us.”
Guardiola didn’t even mention Grealish when offering a passing reference to his older guard who sat on the bench at Spurs. He praised Bernardo for restoring control after Spurs threatened Ederson’s goal in the second half. That used to be Grealish’s job. James McAtee came on before him, not for the first time.
But Grealish was only summoned with a minute to go of injury time. He watched Haaland score before the goal was ruled out and saw Pape Matar Sarr head over from six yards but didn’t touch the ball once.
He was overlooked from the start, overlooked to see out the win, and only brought on to use up precious time in the 92nd minute. It could have been anyone. Then Guardiola overlooked him when discussing how he wants his future City attack to look.
As Guardiola talks of rebuilds, futures and transitions from old to new, Grealish is not even featuring in the conversation.
