10 | Jack Grealish - 2021/22 Performances

[alexmcity]

Generally, judging by comments on Gundogan, Rodri, Cancelo, Jesus, Mahrez, Bernardo, Grealish, etc., people tend to be pretty bad at finding structural flaws in our players, i.e., flaws which are hard to overcome. Examples: being too slow (Gundogan and Rodri), being ineffective (Bernardo, when struggling to contribute a single assist/goal last season), being unproductive (Jesus), being predictable (Grealish), being poor at defending (Cancelo), etc.

Almost always those structural flaws turn out to be contextual and temporary. Which is hardly surprising because those players are very talented and are at City for a reason, being selected by some of the very best professionals in the game.

 

[Keeper!]

Give him a chance. What Pep player has peaked within 6 months of arriving?….

Dias, Ederson, Walker and Mendy.

I agree that the midfield players have a lot to take on with Pep and this team, the demands are huge and Grealish will need time.

BUT, he lacks pace and his finishing is shocking and always was, so I am not sure that will ever improve.

And as I have said previously, he needs to sort himself out professionally, his fitness is an issue for me, blowing constantly and always flat footed and off field he needs to sort his life out and cut out the blonde distractions or at least settle on one!!

 

[MarsLlama]

What are your thoughts on David Silva & his weakest attribute, which I’m pretty certain most would say was his finishing?

Did the chances Spanish Dave missed make him a liability too?

David Silva not only hit 8+ goals in half his seasons here, he got assists too. For as long as Grealish continues to do neither, it's perfectly fair to question why he's still starting games.

 

[MarsLlama]

Think we're all in a bit too deep on this.

Stunning how many of our fans make their minds up after 4 months, though.

We were recently in a pretty long lockdown, which left me with fuck all to do in the weekends or evenings except watch football. So even before Jack came to City I must've seen him play dozens of times and I'm sure the same goes for a lot of us. We've not made up our minds after 4 months, it's just that even if he hits the best form he showed at Villa, he's not better than Gundogan or Bernardo and he's not better than Sterling or Foden.

 

[MarsLlama]

Read my earlier posts in the thread, love.

I’ve been pretty critical of Grealish and given plenty of reasons why.

But “good lord” when did goals and assists become the best way to judge a midfielder?!

“Assists” only started getting recorded in England in about 1995 when Fantasy League started. Was there no way of judging a good midfielder pre-1995? Lol

Gabriel Jesus has more assists than Bernado this season, shall we take that as proof Jesus has performed better because assists are quantifiable?

Grealish has performed poorly because he slows the team down and often doesn’t play the right pass at the right time. There’s more to judging a player than stats.

He's not playing in fucking midfield for starters!

The forwards are primarily there to score and create goals. That's not 'oversimplifying football' like you want to pretend, that's just logic.

 

[howfen blue]

He needs to simplify his game and take less touch’s of the ball. That will make him more affective for the team and less predictable in his play.

Personally I think that's the last thing he needs to do. He's in the team to make things happen and he just isn't doing it. I can't believe how predictable he is and how he rarely beats anyone. Hopefully it's just teething problems but I'm severely underwhelmed by him at present.

 

[asahartford1]

I have defended Sterling in response to some nasty unfounded critiscm.
I will do the same for Grealish. .Though not reaching the levels some posters said he would, (some thought he was the second coming,) he has also not been as poor as some have said on here.
At least yesterday he got into the perfect position to miss that chance, that is the run I would like to see him make more of.

He is still working hard, trying to follow peps instructions, adapting to different positions, and following orders, not easy compared to the free reign he had at Villa.
The team is the mantra for pep too many posters still dwell on the individual.

 

[MarsLlama]

As I keep saying, Nolito is the only non-defensive summer signing that's immediately got off to a flying start under Pep. And we all know how that ended up. Whereas Bernardo, Sane, Mahrez, Rodri, Gundogan, even Cancelo - all of them took time to grow into their roles in the team. People were calling for Gundogan to be sold up until last summer!

Bernardo/Cancelo/Sané/Mahrez/Gundogan- they didn't hit the ground running by any means but it was fine because they all spent plenty of time in their first season on the bench while De Bruyne/Silva/Sané, Walker, Sterling/Navas/Nolito, Sané and De Bruyne/Silva respectively got the bulk of the minutes. They had time to get used to the system without us being hurt too much if they weren't playing well.

Rodri I take issue with, he wasn't as good in his first season as he is now but was certainly much closer to the level we need than Grealish has been so far.

So the issue with Grealish isn't that he's not been great, it's that we're starting him in almost every important game when fit even though he clearly needs more time to settle in, which we didn't do for five of the six players you mention.

 

[Kinkladze 1]

Dias

Ok 1 out of what, 15. Sorry.

 

[Dadsupportedthem]

People keep bringing up criticism of Gundogan. When Gundo was getting stick it was when he was paired in midfoed with KDB. He was under par and rightly called out. It's obvious now, as a result of Kev's injuries, that Gundo plays much better when he is not in the team.