It has been a slower burn for Jack Grealish at Manchester City. Grealish is now approaching the last knockings of his second season at the Etihad and perhaps only now are we starting to see the best of him. Against Liverpool last weekend, he was excellent in both halves of the field. And Grealish’s emergence as a key cog in City’s machine is all about Pep Guardiola, really. It’s all his work.Jack was an established Premier League player when City paid Aston Villa 114 million euros for him in the summer of 2021. He was almost 26 and had been the captain of his hometown club. But that didn’t mean he was ready to play consistently well for City, the best team in England. He wasn’t.Ian Ladyman, the columnist for the DailyMail, deeply analyzes Grealish’s path from being trampled by pressures from the public and the media, pushed down by his price tag and his slow awakening among the Cityzens.Stopping Haaland requires facts, knowledge and effort – not hopeThe best way to observe Jack’s progress and Pep’s influence on it is through comparison with his young countryman and teammate Phil Foden. Not only because they compete for the same left-side berth but because Guardiola has brought his own subtle, ultra-intelligent mark, too.Back when Foden was starting with City’s first team, at the age of 19, he admitted he was still shy and nervous around players such as David Silva and Kevin De Bruyne.And there was pressure. There were calls for him to play more back then. Not from Foden, but from outside. From supporters and media. They continued into the next season and the gist of them was that Guardiola was holding back the future of English football, that he was prioritizing foreign talent over our own.##EDITORS_CHOICE##Nobody says that any more, do they? Because it turned out Guardiola had it right. Foden is 22 now, has more than 120 Premier League appearances and 33 goals behind him and has played for his country 22 times.As Foden grew from boy to man on Guardiola’s watch, he has also managed to avoid serious injury which also points to an appropriate workload. The case of Grealish has been slightly different.He struggled during his beginnings at Etihad and conclusions were quickly reached and expressed – that he is not good enough, that he is too expensive, that he falls over too easily… And this came not just from the stands at the Etihad or in the newspapers. This was from ex-pros on the television and radio. Guardiola has blundered, they said. Except he hadn’t and now we see that. Now we see the work Guardiola and his staff have put into Grealish to help him transform from what he was to what he is.The Spaniard’s work has been exceptional and continues to be seen in other English players such as Kyle Walker and John Stones.##NAJAVA_MECA_7161267##No one knew how long Guardiola would stay when he pitched up at City in 2016 but none of us expected him to stick around for seven years and more. And he is in the league with a purpose, he is not just passing by, he wants to leave something behind.There is a greater depth to his work and we see it now in Foden and in Grealish and in others.Grealish is one of the latest products of Pep’s meticulous approach to the game and if he stays healthy – the Englishman’s path is headed only upwards.
