Why Jack Grealish has struggled to adapt at Manchester City

At his former club Grealish played a free and largely undefined role, where he was allowed to move and play where he wanted to as Dean Smith, the manager, built his team around the forward.

Villa, a counterattacking team when they rejoined the Premier League in 2019, tended to play through him and looked to him for leadership on the pitch; Grealish would start attacks deep in his own half by picking the ball up and carrying it.

For Villa, Grealish was a purely vertical player — his only concern was moving the ball closer to goal, wherever he was on the pitch. And, given Villa played with a minority of possession, he was able to play his natural game. The tactics not only suited his talents but accentuated them.

At City, he does not have the opportunity to play the same way and he is not being asked to either. Statistically, those attributes that defined him at Villa, and which made him such a dynamic and eye-catching player, have fallen away.

“I’ve been at Villa my whole life and I’ve never had to change,” Grealish said. “I’ve always been used to that. I didn’t realise how hard it is to adapt to another team and manager. I’ve been here 18 months and I’m still getting used to it.”

Villa were far more direct than City are. This season, the average length of City’s passing sequences is 15.05 seconds, the most in the league, and more than four seconds longer than the second-placed side, Arsenal. Similarly, they average 9.4 passes per sequence (the most in the division) and have the slowest direct speed too (1.07 metres per second).

That difference in speed and directness to Villa is stark. In 2020-21, their average sequence time was only 8.3 sec. Villa also averaged three passes per sequence, with a direct speed of 1.6 metres per second, which was the fourth-highest in the league at the time.

Villa were far more direct than City are, then averaging 8.3 seconds per sequence to City’s 15.05 seconds

JAMIE MCPHILIMEY/NMC POOL

Grealish was brought off the bench as a substitute in the 60th minute against Chelsea, and he says he was instructed by Pep Guardiola, the City manager, to “be aggressive, attack [César] Azpilicueta [Chelsea’s right back] and stay high and wide” — those final instructions were almost the opposite of what Dean Smith would have said to him in the same situation.

At City the tactical emphasis is on positional play — proactively looking to control space by permanently occupying key spaces identified by the manager. At Villa, it was more reactive, with the emphasis on seeing space and attacking it when it appeared.

“It’s so different to what I was used to at Aston Villa,” Grealish continued. “[Smith would say,] ‘Go and find where you think the weak link is in the defence. If you want to go right, in the middle [or] hug the touchline.’ ”

The midfielder also explained that at Villa he would have an overlapping full back, which would allow him to come inside, get into the penalty area and combine with midfielders and the striker. However, Manchester City over the past few seasons have moved away from playing with high and wide full backs, instead using them in deeper, central positions, supporting the defensive midfielder — with the onus on providing width residing with the wingers.

However, on Thursday night against Chelsea, City found far more space on the counterattack than they are used to, and Grealish was able to play a little more freely. “The game, it felt a bit more open,” he said. “We’ve had games this season against Everton and Brentford where they’ve had back five and sat in against us. Today with a back four it seemed so much more open.”