Aston Villa star Jack Grealish made an emphatic return to the pitch as we took a comfortable victory over Derby County last week.
Having spent three months on the sidelines with a shin injury, head coach Dean Smith gave our Academy graduate the captain’s armband on his return and finding the net himself in the 4-0 demolition of Frank Lampard’s side, well, it couldn’t have gone better as Villa look to get back to form and end the season strongly after festive and New Year frustrations.
Speaking to the Birmingham Mail this week, 23-year-old Jack revealed that he didn’t pick up the problem in the West Bromwich Albion game as many had assumed, he actually sustained the issue in Smith’s opening game in charge, and he fought through the pain to try and impress until he couldn’t take it anymore.
“Since Swansea I had it. Obviously the manager comes in and you get an injury after his first game you don’t really want to pull out. You want to impress the manager and keep on playing so I carried on. I must have played about seven or eight games with it and then, in the end, the Middlesbrough game and the West Brom one, the pain got too much.”
Going on to describe how ‘devastated’ he was when he learned how long he’d be sidelined for, it certainly provides context to how hard he worked during his rehabilitation period, with Smith saying they had to hold him back at points, and it certainly demonstrates his own efforts against Derby to make a point on his return.
