Premier League 2021/22: Why you must not believe that City’s Jack Grealish has been a failure – scout report

Last summer, when Man City were chasing a striker, it turned out there was no one, especially Harry Kane was unable to leave Tottenham Hotspur at that time. Instead, City very quickly snapped up Jack Grealish from Aston Villa, who had very consistent and good performances in the past few seasons.

Time flew and seven months later, Grealish has not shone and scored 20+ goals  he is lacking goals and missed some chances this season. Hence, it was a small wonder to see the pundits and ex-players calling out his name to question his contribution. For example, Rodney Marsh, the big signing of City in the 1970s criticized Grealish as a “periphery” to the squad while Alan Shearer, also said, “Everything Grealish did was safe and simple. It looked as if he was scared to lose possession and take a gamble.” It sounds like Grealish has been a failure and has a bad season at City, is that the truth? Apparently, yes, but if we dig deep, NO!

Data analysis

In the first part of the scout report, we were using data to examine the performances of Grealish in the Premier League so far, by comparing his number with other players in the same league.

Firstly, we compared the playing minutes and games started of the new winger signings at City since Pep Guardiola has arrived. Everyone knew that Pep was a demanding coach, and he never care about the price tag, what determined the playing time of the players were their attitude, performance during the training and on the pitch. Hence, it would be a fair reflection to see how Grealish has been doing in his first season compared with the others.

We included Riyad Mahrez, Bernardo Silva, Nolito, and Leroy Sané in the chart. Grealish, as a new signing, already had 17 starts with 1450 minutes in total for the champion, the number of games started was only behind Sané’s first season, while there were nine games ahead this season, there was a chance to surpass the record. Although B. Silva had 69 more minutes on the pitch than Grealish in his first season, the Portugal international actually had 20 appearances coming in as a substitute, while Grealish was adversely affected by injuries on several occasions, he was comparable if not better than B. Silvas first season.

And, see