Jack Grealish's Future at Manchester City: A Fanbase Divided
Jack Grealish is back at Manchester City’s training ground, but not on their plane.
As Pep Guardiola’s squad flew out for a lucrative pre-season tour of Hong Kong and Seoul, the £100m winger stayed behind in Manchester, left out of the travelling party despite returning for pre-season. For a player once billed as the creative heartbeat of City’s left flank, the optics are brutal.
And City supporters are split right down the middle.
A fanbase losing patience
For some, the decision to omit Grealish from the tour feels less like a nudge and more like the start of the goodbye.
“City played better without him last season, so why have him back in a City shirt?”
June asks, cutting straight to the point. In her eyes, Grealish has become a symbol of wasted potential rather than a game-changer.
“He spent too much time on the grass instead of playing,”
she adds, summing up a frustration that has stalked him since his arrival from Aston Villa: the injuries, the niggles, the stop-start rhythm. For supporters who watched City surge through the run-in without him as a regular starter, the conclusion is simple. “He is not worth having back.”
Paul goes even harder. “We should get rid,” he says, labelling Grealish “City’s worst signing since Lee Bradbury.” It’s a savage comparison, but it speaks to how far expectations have fallen for a player who once cost a British record fee.
To Paul, the problem isn’t just form, it’s presence. “He is a legend in his own head and he brings nothing,” he insists. The number on Grealish’s back clearly grates too. “He wears the number 10 shirt, but he couldn’t hit a barn door.”
This is the harshest reading of Grealish’s City career: a luxury player in a team that no longer has time for luxuries.
The case for redemption
Not everyone is ready to close the book.
Roger, like many City fans of a certain age, sees more than just numbers on a spreadsheet. He sees dressing-room glue, title-race nous, players who know what it takes when the legs are heavy and the pressure is suffocating.
“I’d love to get him back playing a part in the team for this coming season,”
he says. To him, Grealish still belongs in the same emotional bracket as John Stones and Kevin de Bruyne – leaders whose bodies may be fraying but whose influence runs deep.
Roger admits they are all carrying “injury baggage” and nearing the latter stages of their careers, yet he believes their presence could still tilt a title race. “These players… would and could have a significant impact on keeping the team spirit alive,” he argues.
He looks back at last season and wonders. “We may have pipped Arsenal if they had still been a part of the team.” It’s a hypothetical, but it underlines his belief that City’s edge is as psychological as it is tactical.
His frustration doesn’t stop with Grealish, either. Letting James Trafford leave, he warns, “is also going to be a huge error.” To Roger, there’s a pattern emerging: proven or promising players allowed to drift away, and a squad losing pieces of its identity in the process.
A crossroads at the Etihad
Strip away the emotion and one truth remains: Grealish now stands at a crossroads in his City career.
Left at home while his team-mates tour Asia, he is no longer untouchable, no longer the marquee signing around whom the system bends. City have learned to win without him, and some fans clearly prefer the version of Guardiola’s side that moves the ball quicker and cuts more directly.
Yet the other side of the argument refuses to die. Grealish has shown, in bursts, that he can control the tempo of big matches, win fouls in the right areas, and give City a different rhythm on the left. For supporters like Roger, that still matters in a season that will stretch every squad to breaking point.
What happens next will not be decided on message boards or phone-ins. It will be decided on training pitches in Manchester, in Guardiola’s office, and perhaps in the final weeks of the transfer window.
For now, the winger trains in the shadows while the champions tour the world. The question is simple, and ruthless: when City’s season truly starts, is Jack Grealish still part of the story, or has the club already turned the page?
