Manchester City have gone through their pre-season tour of America with a significant number of first-team players away on holiday.
Despite that, the players currently in the squad have had the chance to show Pep Guardiola what they’re made of ahead of the upcoming 2024/25 season.
However, one of the more senior figures in the pre-season ranks has failed to convince one pundit about how suitable he is for City based on what he’s shown in the club’s early friendly matches.
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Pundit claims Jack Grealish is Man City’s worst player
Speaking in a recent video uploaded on the ESPN FC YouTube channel, Stewart Robson said this on the subject of Jack Grealish and what he does for City on the pitch including their recent pre-season matches against Celtic and AC Milan.
He said: “For me, Grealish, over the last season and a half is Man City’s worst player.
“Whenever he gets the ball, I sometimes watch the games with a top-class coach who I used to work with, John Cartwright, and we giggle.
“The ball comes to him and he never takes anybody on, he goes back to the full-back, he goes back to centre-halves.
“I’ve seen him in these two pre-season games, he’s been given a start because everybody else is away, he’s not affected the game at all, he’s looked as though he can’t go past anybody.
“We saw the substitute come on, go past someone and get across into the box, a youngster. Grealish never did that in the two games. I can’t see how he gets in Manchester City’s best team.
Grealish helps City keep the ball
This isn’t the first time Robson has shared his criticism for Grealish and his confusion at what the winger does for the Blues, as he said fairly recently that he thinks the Englishman has gotten worse since becoming a City player.
With the £300k-a-week attacker only successfully completing 18 of the 41 take-ons he attempted in the Premier League last season, it’s clear that this isn’t what Guardiola tells him to do regularly.
Interestingly, only Phil Foden (60) won more fouls than Grealish (41) in the Premier League last season, which shows how effective Grealish is when it comes to slowing the game down, keeping possession and setting up set-pieces his side can score from.
In our view, Robson should take a look at the prominent role the winger played in City’s Treble-winning season and learn more about what Guardiola actually asks him to do rather than criticise him for not doing things he thinks he should be doing.
