Everton announced today that they have signed forward Jack Grealish on a season-long loan from Manchester City. The England international is by far the highest profile star that the Blues have signed in years, possibly since James Rodriguez graced Goodison Park.
The Toffees have been pursuing the player on and off for a couple of months, with the biggest sticking point being the player’s reported £300,000 per week wages, with City insisting they would not be picking up any part of that sum. However, leading up to the Blues first full game at their new home at Hill Dickinson Stadium talks seemed to have picked up with the two sides coming to an agreement.
The Athletic reported early on Monday that the player was headed to Merseyside for a medical with a move imminent. An optional buy clause for approximately £50m was also added to the deal, likely purely for future valuation purposes.
Grealish has found himself out of favour with Pep Guardiola, making only 16 starts last season. In all competitions he had 32 appearances, scoring 3 goals and laying on 5 assists in just over 1,500 minutes of playing time.
The forward will turn 30 next month, and has arguably been in decline over the last couple of years. Grealish hit his prime with Aston Villa leading up to the 2020/21 season (scoring 7 goals and 12 assists) when he moved to City for a British record fee of £100 million. At City, the Birmingham-born winger had his best two-year spell playing in 39 games with 6 goals and 4 assists in 21/22 and following it up in 22/23 with 5 goals and 11 assists in 50 games, and lifting the Champions League trophy. In 23/24 he had just 3 goals and 3 assists in 36 appearances.
Everton already have Dwight McNeil and Iliman Ndiaye on the left wing, so it’s expected that Grealish will feature more in the central role currently occupied by Carlos Alcaraz when the Blues line up in a 4-2-3-1. The Toffees have also been in a 4-3-3 recently to allow other summer signing Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall to get on the pitch alongside Idrissa Gueye and James Garner, and in that case Grealish will likely line up with Ndiaye behind the striker.
Speaking to the club’s media after signing his contract, Grealish said -
> “I’m over the moon to have signed for Everton - It’s massive for me, honestly. This is a great club, with great fans.
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> ”As soon as I spoke to the manager, I knew there was only one place that I wanted to go. On social media, I’ve been flooded with messages from Everton supporters, so there’s that side of it as well and that’s another reason why I chose Everton.
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> ”I want to say thank you to the fans for all of the messages I’ve had already. Thank you for all of the love and support. I hope I can repay you now and I’m sure I will.”
On the new signing, Moyes said -
> “We welcome Jack to Everton, and we’re very pleased to have him on board.
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> “I think we’re getting him at a good time because he’s experienced, he understands the Premier League, and we’re all fully aware of the levels he’s capable of performing to.
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> “I know Jack’s ambition is to get back into the England squad so hopefully we can help him achieve that over the course of the season.
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> “We’re all looking forward to working with him and providing a platform for him to show the best version of himself.”
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