Manchester City record signing Jack Grealish will join up with the England squad with a point to prove. He was a fan favorite at the Euros but his popularity did not correspond to his game time. After his £100m move to Manchester City in the summer, Grealish became a priority for Gareth Southgate for their World Cup qualifiers against Hungary and Poland. After a disappointing campaign with City, Grealish is at risk of dropping out of the starting XI once again.
“Would Harry Kane have made the difference? I always said in the summer that I was surprised they didn’t spend the money they did on Jack Grealish on Harry Kane,” Jamie Carragher said about England forward Jack Grealish. “I didn’t feel City particularly needed Grealish; he’s obviously a quality player but with [Phil] Foden, Bernardo Silva, Raheem Sterling able to play there, it probably wasn’t the right choice. The big challenge is to start registering those numbers that our other wide players have been able to produce over a period of time.”
“When a player leaves a club where the expectations and standards aren’t as high, it shocks them. You have to come through that initial shock of coming as a £100m player, thinking ‘we’ll have 75 percent possession and I’m going to have assists and goals’. It doesn’t quite happen like that,” Gary Neville said. There’s a little bit of having to get used to Pep Guardiola’s system and we’ve seen a lot of players thrive in their second season who have needed the first 12 months to bed in. There have been times where he’s not been moving it quick enough without doing anything and passing it back to the left-back. Sometimes, he’s not put the hard yards in, but I felt [against Manchester United] the penny dropped. It looked to me like he was more athletic, more positive and direct in his play.”
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