Jack Grealish fans have been urging the winger to get out of Pep Guardiola’s machine football in recent seasons, which leaves no room for a creative player like Grealish. This season there have been seven poor Premier League games from the start, the last four PL games the 29-year-old has not even made it off the bench, the same in the FA Cup final. Now it is reported that City themselves will push Grealish towards exit.
In the winter transfer window, City spent £200 million on Omar Marmoush, Abdukodir Khusanov, Vitor Reis and Nico Gonzalez. The season seems to be narrowly saved by a Champions League ticket. Heading into a transfer window, it has been announced that City will pull up £180 million on two players, this only during the first part of the transfer window. Then it becomes very tight in the salary budget of the club.
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According to football finance expert Stefan Borson, City are likely to be pressured to sell Bernardo Silva, Ilkay Gundogan, Nathan Ake, John Stones and Jack Grealish this summer to clear space.
-I think that the budgets will be self-imposed and also limited by the size of the squad now, in terms of players they do not necessarily want in the future. Kevin De Bruyne will obviously leave the club, and that will free up a big chunk of the salary budget,” Borson told Football-Insider.
“But there are a number of players in that type of group, like Bernardo Silva, Gundogan, possibly one of Ake or Stones, players who haven’t played much this season because of injury, but who are approaching their 30s or are 30. So is Grealish. These players earn a lot of money that they will want to move, the expert continues.
“But they will not be able to do it at a profit. They need to take a “haircut”. So the challenge really becomes how many of those types of players can they remove from the squad? Because I think they will build up the squad bigger for the demands of the season, but there is a limit, and there is a limit to the salary expenses. They already have a salary expense of over £400 million, the financial expert concludes.
For Jack Grealish, this could be the final push towards exit.
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Caughtoffside’s reported last month Manchester City are open to considering bids of around €50 million, i.e. willing to take losses of at least €67.5 million for the left winger. Nottingham Forest, Tottenham and Newcastle are showing great interest in Grealish, it is reported.
Several Grealish fans will say “finally” to the exit of City and Guardiola, who have not been able to fit Grealish’s creativity into the team machine.
