Jack Grealish has his swagger back.

Since swapping the somewhat clockwork football of Pep Guardiola’s Manchester City for the freedom given to him at Everton, Grealish looks like Grealish again.

It’s four assists in his four Premier League games in Everton blue and a Player of the Month award to boot. But along with the goal involvements, he’s carrying games, dictating the tempo and twisting defenders.

You could say he’s partying like it’s 2015 again when he ran Liverpool ragged in an FA Cup semi-final at just 20 years old for Aston Villa. His manager that day, Tim Sherwood – now working for Sky Sports on Soccer Saturday – went to meet him this week at Everton’s training ground to discuss his electric start to the season.

Monday 29th September 6:30pm


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“People were saying to me, ‘what are you doing going to Everton’, and I was like, ‘what do you mean?’. It’s a massive club,” Grealish told Sherwood.

“I’m at my best when I feel loved. You know I’m quite vulnerable off the pitch and I wanted to go somewhere to just feel the love again, and to just wake up and want to play with a smile on my face again.

“Obviously people have a perception of me, but there’s nothing I love doing more than playing football. Whether that’s on the training field, I just love playing football.

“People go, ‘he likes to go out, he likes to party’ – and I do.

“I want to be able to live my life as well and enjoy myself, but there’s a time and a place to do that.

“I’ll be honest with you, I probably haven’t picked the right times – sometimes at City, for example, I didn’t help myself at times, I’ll openly say that – but then I don’t think it was all down to that.

“People say to me, ‘what happened at City?’ But I had two good years there. The first year I was getting used to everything, going there for that amount of money, the pressure and just getting used to the way the manager wanted to play and the environment.

“The second year we won the treble and it was an unbelievable year. I loved it. The third year, I put that down to myself really and I feel like I didn’t do certain things right in that year.”

At City, Grealish became a cog in Guardiola’s meticulously crafted machine. There were zones to occupy, spaces to attack almost robotically, triangles to build. He played with limits. Shackles, perhaps.

This was not the Grealish who once terrorised defences at Villa Park and convinced City to pay £100m. This was a version stripped back. Efficient, yes. Trophies? Plenty. Exciting? Rarely.

Fast forward to Everton and it’s all changed.

David Moyes – not always a manager immediately associated with expressive football – has done something simple yet very effective: he’s let Grealish play. This freedom to create is at the forefront of Moyes’ rebrand of the Toffees that has seen them make a very encouraging start to the campaign.

“It’s down to him [Moyes] for giving me that platform to go and play the way I’ve been playing,” said Grealish.

“I don’t mean this in an arrogant way but I do like it when managers say, ‘you’re the footballer, go and do what you want to do’.

“I’d rather someone just be like, ‘when you get the ball Jack, just go and play.’

“That’s what he says to me. Obviously you have your jobs, you have roles to do without the ball, but he says to me, ‘when you get the ball just go and do what you want to do’.”

Grealish leads the league for total carries per 90 this season at 9.1.

This metric, another term for a dribble, has rocketed compared to his numbers at City over the past two years, which averaged out at a paltry 3.1 per 90.

Under Guardiola, Grealish had to think two passes ahead and stick to a regimented plan of suffocating opponents with possession. But there’s an electricity about him now, a purpose in possession that was often muted in Manchester.

At Everton, it’s instinct over instruction. This is a player that was born to express and entertain, not to execute a blueprint.

A quick look at his fouls-won numbers this season showcases just how many problems he’s causing opposition players.

He’s lured 17 fouls already this season – five more than any other player. Against Liverpool at Anfield, he was almost unplayable in possession. Conor Bradley tried to halt his mazy runs, and failed. He resorted to fouling Grealish instead to stop his flow, with the Everton man drawing seven fouls in total during the encounter.

Grealish’s time at City wasn’t wasted. He won trophies, created history and matured.

But he wasn’t the maverick that made him box-office and loved by fans of the beautiful game.

Well, the maverick inside is being unleashed. It’s the electric version of Grealish.

Jack is back.