They had achieved great success together before their paths diverged. The strategist might have envied the charisma of his ally but despite their different characters, men with a shared affection for Manchester City seemed in harmony with each other in the good times.
Then, suddenly, they were together again. Still, enough about Noel and Liam Gallagher. Pep Guardiola and Jack Grealish bumped into each other at Oasis’s homecoming gig at Heaton Park.
This, however, was a briefer reunion. They, it transpired, neither need each other nor believe in one another, not anymore. The Gallaghers may bring in a nine-figure sum for their second coming.
Guardiola spent one on Grealish in 2021, though he may not recoup any of it, after leaving the player out of his squad for the Club World Cup this summer. Now the younger man is going out on loan to Everton. With two years left on his contract at City, he may have played his last game for them.
And yet when City staged an open training session last week, the main attraction for many of the supporters seemed to be Grealish. They screamed for him, and he obliged, posing for photographs and signing shirts with a laidback charm. It was as if his fan club had ignored the evidence of City’s last two seasons.
So there are two Grealishs, the people’s champion with the common touch and the injury-prone underachiever who Guardiola tired of. Everton may hope they have signed neither, but instead got a third one: Aston Villa’s driving force and dribbler, a player who brought goals, assists, and excitement to a mid-table team, who had the personality to lift a big club.
A different Grealish played his part in City’s 2022-23 treble: the tactically disciplined player who hugged the left touchline, retained possession and took few risks. It was a persona at odds with some of his off-field antics. His hedonism may have made him a hero to those who imagined they would do likewise if they won the Champions League. Some would date the beginning of the end of his City career to what appeared to be an epic bender in Ibiza in 2023. Those of a City persuasion who will mourn his departure include some staff who recognised how helpful a popular figure he was with his willingness to meet fans and his easy bond with them.
Yet his profile became far greater than his contribution. Grealish started one league game in 2025. He has scored one league goal since 2023. He has begun 17 league matches in two seasons. It isn’t much for a £100m transfer fee and wages of £300,000 a week.
There are tactical elements to how Guardiola has seemingly moved on from Grealish to different types of wingers, such as Jeremy Doku, the relentless dribbler, and Omar Marmoush, the roadrunner. There is the question of how a manager who prefers to operate with a smaller squad incorporates everyone after making 10 signings in 2025, and when some, such as Marmoush and Rayan Cherki, can play in similar positions to Phil Foden. There is the succession to Kevin de Bruyne and it is notable that Guardiola decided Grealish had no part in it. While he had a two-game audition in a deeper role in December, against Nottingham Forest, Guardiola has since signed Nico Gonzalez, Tijjani Reijnders and Cherki. He has rarely seen Grealish in a central role.
But as City look for a new winning blend, the common denominator is that the candidates have to show the productivity Grealish lacked. His four years at City produced just 12 league goals and a dozen assists. He functioned in the treble-winning team because others delivered more (in that squad, Foden, Riyad Mahrez and Julian Alvarez all scored considerably more without figuring in Guardiola’s preferred 11).
If one of the reasons Guardiola turned against was a lifestyle that could have contributed to injuries interrupting his season, he still has admirers, Thomas Tuchel among them. A World Cup place could seem the carrot for Grealish. David Moyes could be a fine choice of manager to rejuvenate his career: he has picked up cast-offs before with some success, and Everton may see some similarities in him to Steven Pienaar.
Yet one of the complications is that what Moyes really required now was a right winger. He already had compelling choices for the two positions Grealish would be likeliest to play in a 4-4-1-1 formation and two of them – Charly Alcaraz and Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall – have been signed this summer. Either could operate as a No 10, so could Iliman Ndiaye, who brought the flair to mean he should not be sidelined for Grealish. Ndiaye and Dwight McNeil can play on the left, and the latter does provide assists, particularly with his crossing and set-pieces.
Of late, Grealish has offered rather fewer. It was partly a product of the way he evolved at City. And yet, while Grealish has described Guardiola as the best manager in the world, he may now need to forget everything the Catalan taught him, to remember the player who excelled for Dean Smith. Whatever he got up to off the pitch, Grealish became one of the duller footballers on it, when he was once among the most exciting. As Everton enter a new era in a new stadium, Grealish needs to turn back time.
