What Now for Aston Villa’s Jack Grealish?

Gordonsleftboot asks ‘what now for Grealish?’

Let me state at the start, I have never been a fan of Grealish.

I first saw him in a friendly at Chester where he was more interested in having a bad tempered tussle with a player of clearly inferior ability than in playing football.

Since then we have had the well documented incidents and many hours spent watching what appeared to be a wasted talent. Fast forward to his last 2 or 3 small cameo performances and there were hints that he could be changing. So it was interesting to see him play yesterday.

What a different player!

He seems to have filled out and, more to the point, changed his attitude. As a result he was by far our best outfield player. In fact I would go so far as to say that if he keeps up the form and class he showed yesterday, we will have one of the best players outside of thePpremier League.

He is one the very few players we have who can take a player on, is aware of those around him and also looks to shoot whenever possible. Before the season started we were told that Grealish was to be the player Bruce built the team around. That makes obvious sense to me now.

Bruce has now said he needs to get Grealish involved, ‘without upsetting the balance’ of the team.

What balance?

Yesterday we had no forwards as opposed to the one we have been having. The midfield is still woefully weak. Hourihone and Lansbury could be tied together and still offer less than Rioch (remember him?), Mortimer, or, more recently, Petrov. Snodgrass is clearly a fairly limited Championship player, Whelan can do a job, but is also limited and Onomah is only a legend in his own mind.

That leaves Grealish. Surely he has to play and Bruce has to build around him as he said he would. With the transfer window opening soon, another option arises. Should we be looking to sell our prized asset to buy a striker? Maybe we could get £15m or more for Grealish. That would buy us a Hogan or a McCormack, so hopefully that answers that question.

Of course if we’re going to get promotion we need goals and at the moment we are just not scoring enough. That will be our downfall. But what is the point of buying a striker without giving him ammunition? Hogan is a proven scorer but watch his goals and he needs a ball to run onto, not a ball lumped up in hope.

Which of our players will ever play that ball?

Well there is one.

Jack Grealish forum thread: Click Here