Speculation is swirling that Jack Grealish could return to Villa four years after leaving them for £100m to join Manchester City
Jack Grealish could leave Manchester City this summer
Jack Grealish(Image: Getty Images)
Manchester City have been warned an Aston Villa return for Jack Grealish could badly backfire on Pep Guardiola.
Grealish looks almost certain to leave the Etihad Stadium this summer, four years after he made a £100m move to City from Villa.
There has inevitably been speculation about the 29-year-old returning to Villa Park to play for his boyhood club once more.
But a former financial adviser to City, Stefan Borson, thinks it’s “very hard to believe” one transfer scenario would ever play out, with City sanctioning a loan for Grealish to Villa and agreeing to still pay some of his wages.
He also likened the risks involved for City over a return to Villa for Grealish to Marcus Rashford’s loan at Villa Park from Manchester United.
“The question is, do Villa want him?” he told Football Insider.
“He’s not really done anything for two years. I think you could see Grealish doing well at LA Galaxy or something.
“If I were him, I’d find a way to go to America and get City to just heavily subsidise the deal. That feels like the right move for him.
“But I suspect he doesn’t want to go to America quite yet and he probably fancies going back to Villa.
“I just find it very hard to believe that City would heavily subsidise a move back to a club who is effectively in competition with them, and it would be embarrassing if it works.
“If you loan him to Villa and it’s a massive success and they did really well next season, City can look really stupid, especially if they paid most of the money.
“It’s a kind of Rashford situation again. I guess it didn’t really backfire on United particularly, but then it hasn’t really worked either.”