Anonymous once more. Ferran Torres seemingly passed on his invisible man costume to Grealish before he left. He's a passenger and we are entering a period where we cannot have any passengers at all. Jesus, whilst not having his shooting boots on looked far sharper than Grealish in his limited time on the pitch, we had mahrez on the bench too, both should be comfortably ahead of him.
How good he may or may not be next season is of no relevance to us right now. There's trophies on the line now, multiple trophies infact and he isn't currently anywhere close to being at the level required to help us win them. Needs to find himself on the bench for at least the next 4 games if we are to come through them in a good situation.
If you're in the front 3, you have to be doing your fair share of numbers as the bare minimum. every other player is doing so and in some cases much more. Grealish is the huge outlier and he's providing nothing for the side that others couldn't do whilst also chipping in with goals and assists. Saying he isn't a goalscorer means nothing, sterling's worst attribute is his finishing, yet he's been banging in 20-30 goals a season from the same position. Mahrez has always been a providing winger rather than a goalscoring one, he's banging in 20+ this season, gundogan isn't a goalscoring midfield yet put in lampard numbers last season. our team doesn't have natural goalscorers but everybody scores goals in this side if they're doing what's asked of them in their role.
I don't know why so many keep banging on about him playing in midfield, he's never played there in his career for any length of time, his skillset is almost the exact opposite of what Pep wants in there, the 8s need to have a quick mind and move the ball quickly with minimal touches until we get towards the final third, even when players carry it like Bernardo, they carry it quickly and release it quickly, Grealish doesn't, he draws people in inviting challenges, not only does that pose the risk of losing it but it surrenders the positional advantage we've just worked the last dozen passes for. He takes too many touches and dribbles too much to do that role, he would lose the ball too much in dangerous areas as witnessed when he lost the ball and gave Burnley their best chance of the game. That's the exact reason why he isn't playing in this current version of our midfield. Not to mention his work rate is some way off being acceptable to play there. Even ignoring all of that, we've got 3 players who are all significantly better options already and foden is surely a better bet as the next in line after those. The only way Grealish fits anywhere that isn't left midfield is if we play with a solo 10 behind a striker, that would mean a drastic change of formation which seems very unlikely and they'd be kdb, gundo, Bernardo, foden and possibly a few others all looking to play there too if we did.
I'm going to very clearly stress that this part isnt his fault, I'm not attributing blame to him in any way for this but the reality is, with him in the team, Fodens not in his most effective position so not only is Grealish not pulling his weight, we don't get the best Foden either. Only one is down to him but right now, we are a worse team on two fronts with Grealish in the side.