Jack Grealish’s Euro 2024 snub must be a wake-up call to get out of Man City and revive his England career

Gareth Southgate’s decision to leave Grealish out of his final 26-man squad for the tournament may have left the player devastated and shocked his team-mates, including Declan Rice. But including him was always a risk after the disappointing season he has had, which contrasts with the consistent form his fellow attacking midfielders had shown.

Southgate has often been criticised for his perceived loyalty to the old guard and not always picking the most in-form players, but this year he has done no such thing. He showed no mercy to Marcus Rashford and Jordan Henderson after their miserable seasons when he banished them from the preliminary squad, having already cut Raheem Sterling and Kalvin Phillips loose.

Grealish had been a big part of England’s campaigns at the 2022 World Cup and previous European Championship, and Southgate said after the Bosnia game that he was “a player that we love having with the group.. a great character to work with”.

But Grealish has been lagging behind his competitors this season. He started just 10 Premier League games for City, scoring three goals and providing one assist. That’s only four goal contributions all season, as many as City defenders Nathan Ake and Kyle Walker, and fewer than Josko Gvardiol.

Jarrod Bowen contributed to 22 goals for West Ham, who finished ninth in the league. Anthony Gordon got 21 for Newcastle to force his way into Southgate’s plans, while Eberechi Eze, who played a massive part in Crystal Palace’s resurgence, finished the campaign with 15 goal contributions.

Phil Foden, who Grealish had usurped in the City line-up the previous term, got 27 goal contributions on his way to being named Premier League Player of the Season. Bukayo Saka, meanwhile, got 25, while Cole Palmer provided a colossal 33.

Unlike in previous tournaments, where the likes of Phillips and Henderson kept their place due to a lack of competition, the bar to get into the England squad has been raised to skyscraper levels. Grealish has not been able to keep up, and he will have to take radical steps to get back into the national team.

Grealish’s season was hindered by an untimely clash with Sheffield United player Ollie McBurnie in August, which the player called “the worst injury I’ve ever had”. The dead leg he suffered sidelined him for six games, and he succumbed to two muscular injuries later in the campaign, against Copenhagen and Luton Town, which further disrupted his flow.

He also fell ill in November, and in December had to deal with a traumatic break-in at his house while he was playing away at Everton. It would be tempting to view the last season as a write-off, an anomaly that won’t be repeated.

But merely staying injury-free next term is unlikely to be enough to reclaim his place in the City team, and by extension the England side.

Even when he had put his injury issues behind him, Grealish was a mere afterthought for Guardiola at the business end of the season, playing just 10 minutes in City’s final five games. He missed the trip to Fulham altogether and was an unused substitute in the last two games against Tottenham and West Ham, as well as in the FA Cup final defeat by Manchester United.

In some of those games, Guardiola dispensed with traditional wingers altogether, using Gvardiol as an inverted full-back and pushing Foden inside. On other occasions when he did want a probing left-winger, he turned to Jeremy Doku.

The Belgian appeared in all of the final five games, starting and providing an assist against West Ham while making a real difference when he was brought on against United at Wembley, scoring and almost dragging City level.

Guardiola treaded carefully when asked after the FA Cup final why he used Grealish so little. The City manager said: “He will be back. He’s struggled this season and Jeremy [Doku] has made an incredible step forward as everyone has seen in the last games. But Jack will be back at the level of last season, I’m pretty sure.”

But it has become increasingly clear that City is not the right home for Grealish if he aspires to be more than a squad player, which is what it will take to win his place back in the England team.

City and Guardiola’s insanely high standards were illustrated by the fact when Grealish had finally settled into the team two years after his £100 million ($127m) move from Aston Villa and played a huge part in winning the treble, the club decided to go and spend £55.5m ($70m) on Doku, a direct competitor for his position.

Grealish is far from the only City player to lose his place in the team so soon after an excellent season, as Joao Cancelo can attest to. But he is too talented and too influential to waste his peak years jostling for a starting berth at the Etihad Stadium.

“He is, for me, at a crossroads in his City career. Jack is 28. He needs to have a close look at himself. He should be in his pomp,” Graeme Souness said on Talksport in December. “Between 26 and 30 you have the knowledge, you’re physically and mentally stronger. He will not be getting any better. This should be his time. So, if I was him, I would be very concerned.”

And now, after he has been excluded from the England squad for a tournament which should have been a career highlight, Grealish’s need to get away from City and to a club that truly cherishes him has become more urgent.

Southgate said Grealish was “devastated” about being dropped, but it is up to him how he reacts to it. He can either sulk and spend the summer drowning his sorrows, entrenching his image as a party boy, or he can use it as a wake-up call and plot his way back into the England team, with the 2026 World Cup as his main objective.

While he was celebrating City’s treble win last year, Grealish went viral for telling the adoring crowd of fans “I’m a turkey and the turkey needs feeding” before having vodka poured down his throat. The image was compared to Paul Gascoigne guzzling alcohol while lying in the infamous ‘Dentist’s Chair’ in a bar in Hong Kong while still an England star in 1996.

Grealish’s antics were cheered on by the media and pundits, but what happened to Gascoigne is nothing to celebrate, and Grealish now finds himself in the same predicament as ‘Gazza’, who was dropped from the England team for the 1998 World Cup. That was also a shock at the time, but with hindsight it should have been easy to predict. Gascoigne’s career was on a downhill path and by then he was playing for Middlesbrough, outside of the Premier League.

Grealish’s career is also in danger of getting away from him, but he still has time to get it back on track. And that means leaving City and becoming better known for his feats on the pitch than his debauched celebrations.