It was, in the end, Jack Grealish’s call. A few days before Manchester City’s squad flew to the United States for the Club World Cup, Grealish met with the club to work out what to do with his summer. He had been a peripheral figure for months. He had started just one Premier League game this year. With his team a goal down in the FA Cup final, Pep Guardiola had sent on a 19-year-old Argentinian debutant instead.
In that characteristically effusive manner, Guardiola said the meeting was “honest” on both sides, full of “incredible love and respect”. The decision, ultimately, rested with Grealish: it was up to him whether he joined his team-mates in Florida, or whether he remained behind, using the time to establish what his options might be for next season.
He chose the latter. His primary purpose for absenting himself from the Club World Cup was to assess his next move. And offers did arrive. Grealish turned down the chance to move to one of Turkey’s superpowers. A proposal from Napoli remains on the table.
There has, though, been no great rush of suitors to his door. That is not because of any shortage of clubs who would like to employ Grealish. It is only a couple of years, after all, since he was a central figure in Manchester City’s triumphal march to the Treble; it is only four since he became the Premier League’s first £100 million player. He is only 29. He is not yet in the autumn of his career. Grealish remains an elite .
There are, though, barely a handful who could conceive of paying him even half of the salary he earns at the Etihad Stadium, which is thought to stand in the region of £18 million a year, before tax. Even those that could pay tend to be well stocked in his favoured roles, and would generally reserve the sort of investment necessary to sign him for players who are younger.
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Grealish finds himself, in effect, in a gilded trap: the teams that might want him cannot afford him, and the majority of the teams that can afford him do not want him.
He is not the only one caught in such a dilemma. He might find empathy for his situation among plenty of his peers. Of the England squad that reached the European Championship final in 2021 alone, for example, there are six players – including Grealish – who have spent much of this summer trying to pick their way out of it.
Some have come closer to a solution than others. Marcus Rashford has, apparently, always wanted to play for Barcelona . That deal comes with caveats, though. Barcelona cannot afford to sign him permanently, and so he is joining on an initial season-long loan. The Spanish champions are covering his salary, but he has had to forgo some bonuses. And he cannot yet be certain that he will be able to play in La Liga; Barcelona missed out on their primary target this summer, Nico Williams, because they could not guarantee that their financial situation would allow them to register him.
Juventus have been exploring the possibility of signing Jadon Sancho, his former Manchester United team-mate, on a similar basis, though quite how far that particular investigation has gone is unclear. Nottingham Forest are also thought to be willing to offer Sancho – who spent last season on loan at Chelsea – an escape route.
And then there are those whose careers seem to be in stasis. Ben Chilwell and Raheem Sterling both returned to Chelsea this summer after anticlimactic loan spells at Crystal Palace and Arsenal respectively; neither features in Enzo Maresca’s plans for this coming season, and yet neither has been inundated with offers of alternative employment. Wherever Kalvin Phillips plays this year, it will not be at Manchester City.
The phenomenon is not, of course, limited to English players: Axel Disasi and Antony all have much the same problem this summer . But it is not a coincidence that Grealish, Sterling and the rest should be among that number . It is an issue that disproportionately affects English clubs.
When Manchester United departed on their pre-season tour to the United States , they left a “bomb squad” of five players behind in Manchester. It serves both as an admittedly brutal practical measure – Ruben Amorim wanted to work with as small a group as possible so as to make his training sessions more effective – and as a powerful piece of symbolism, even if subsequently Amorim talked about the possibility of their return to the main squad if they weren’t sold.
Last year, in Maresca’s first summer at Stamford Bridge, Chelsea did much the same. Indeed, that case might have been even more extreme: the club had been so active in the transfer market that the changing room at their training facility in Cobham was no longer large enough to accommodate everyone. Chilwell and Sterling were among those excommunicated on that occasion. (Guardiola, for his part, has not indicated whether this is a fate that awaits either Grealish or Phillips.)
The reason that such drastic action has been deemed necessary, in both cases, is that the Premier League’s gargantuan wealth is wholly anomalous to European football as a whole. English football continues to grow richer; on the continent, with three or four exceptions, margins have been winnowing . The traditional mechanics of the game’s transfer market are, in effect, broken.
In previous eras, a whole class of aspirational French or middle-class Spanish clubs might have provided refuge for those deemed surplus to requirements. Now, the finances make that impossible. For a while, Serie A was the exception, thanks to a tax break offered to players from outside the European Union; its abolition, almost two years ago, dulled that fleeting edge.
Moving within the Premier League is increasingly difficult, too. Those players who have spent their careers competing for trophies find a drop in status almost more disheartening than a reduction in wages; as the league has grown smarter, more savvy, even the clubs who might once have been seen as the natural destinations for cast-offs tend to prefer players on their way up, rather than on their way down.
The result is a form of stasis: a series of loans, perhaps, loveless marriages of convenience, taken in the desperate hope that one might spark something real; or remaining stubbornly in place, hoping that a manager might change their mind.
In early July, after a month or so fielding offers, Grealish and Guardiola both attended one of Oasis’s homecoming gigs at Heaton Park. They were not there together – Guardiola was with his family, Grealish had at least one well-oiled conversation with a member of the general public – but their paths did cross in a VIP area.
The two men spoke briefly, and warmly. So warmly, in fact, that Grealish came away from the conversation wondering if the best place to be might well be where he is now, contemplating whether his future might lie at Manchester City after all.
Photo by Alex Pantling/Getty