For a player who has spoken openly about needing to feel wanted, Jack Grealish’s summer just got a lot harder to read.
Asked directly about Grealish’s future in his first press conference as Man City manager, Enzo Maresca gave an answer that revealed almost nothing.
“At the moment he’s here — he’s a City player,” he said. “I always say the same, in any club I’ve joined, if there are players that belong to the club, it’s my duty to try to coach them. Jack, at the moment, is here. I’ve had a good relation with Jack since I left, we’ve kept in touch, and the reason why is because he has a big heart, and he’s a very good guy. And we’ll see what happens.”
No timeline. No confirmation a loan is even being discussed. Just warmth, and a shrug — from a manager who, by other accounts, is understood to believe the desire for an Everton return sits on Grealish’s side too.
What Grealish himself has said
This isn’t a player who’s stayed schtum about what a settled club means to him.
During his Everton loan, Grealish spoke candidly about arriving at a low point:
“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.” He credited David Moyes directly for reviving something that had gone missing at City — “I thank him for giving me my love back.”
Grealish’s football has visibly depended on feeling wanted somewhere specific, and right now he’s back at a club that spent two years barely picking him, waiting on a manager who won’t commit to anything beyond liking him personally.
Everton are reported to see him as their priority target, but City’s preference is said to be a permanent sale rather than another loan, at a fee near the £50m option Everton have already decided against meeting.
None of that is in Grealish’s control.
He’s back in training at a club he’s publicly implied he needed to leave once already, waiting on two recruitment teams to agree a number, with the manager who could decide his season offering nothing more concrete than good wishes.
