Our FPL expert explains why Jack Grealish’s move to Everton has some significant knock-on effects.
If Grealish gets back to his best this season at his new club, does he become a consideration at just £6.5m – and what impact will his arrival have on the playing time of other Everton assets such as Iliman Ndiaye and Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall?
Is Jack Grealish worth buying in Fantasy Premier League?
Over the last couple of years, it’s fair to say that Grealish has not been a serious consideration for FPL managers. He’s scored four goals and registered two assists in the last two seasons and hasn’t scored more than 50 points since 2022/23. That’s the better part of 100 points fewer than you want for a mid-low price midfielder.
But at his best, it was a different story. Grealish returned a career best score of 149 points in 2019/20, when he was still at Aston Villa, and passed 120 points twice in the three season since. At a higher price point, that wouldn’t be enough to make him an interesting buy, but at £6.5m there’s at least some potential.
He would have to get right back towards his best Villa form to be worth buying. There are plenty of players at similar or lower price points liable to get close to 150 points or even exceed it – Kaoru Mitoma and Moisés Caicedo being among them. You can read my piece about the best budget midfielders in the game to get more detail as to why I believe that to be true.
So Grealish would need to do for Everton what he did for Villa at a minimum to become an FPL asset worth buying it. That requires a lot of faith, not least because Everton are not generally noted as a fluent attacking outfit under David Moyes. Solid though they are at the back, it’s fair to assume that they won’t enjoy enormous amounts of possession and territory, which may limit the returns from their attacking players to some degree.
You’d also have to back Grealish to buck his own recent trends. There aren’t too many statistical signposts which suggest he has done anything save for regress and struggle over the past two seasons, and his limited role at City hasn’t just reflected Pep Guardiola’s changing tactical ideals but also his own poor form.
Grealish is scoring less, creating weaker chances and beating fewer defenders on the dribble than he has at any point since he first rose to prominence in Birmingham. There are any number of technical and psychological reasons that could be the case, but it would require as astonishing turnaround from Grealish to get back to the levels at which he is a major consideration in the FPL. He certainly shouldn’t be in any starting squads outside those of his immediate family.
Why Jack Grealish makes other Everton players more of a liability in the FPL
Of course, while the lovable attacking midfielder may not be someone we sign in the FPL straight away, his move to Everton has knock-on effects which may be significant.
Just last week, Everton signed Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall and I wrote an article wondering whether the £5.0m midfielder had immediately become one of the best budget enablers in the game – now, Grealish’s arrival muddies the waters.
Grealish seems to have been signed as a number ten, based on the fact that reports suggest that his arrival has seen Everton end their pursuit of Southampton’s Tyler Dibling, who also typically plays behind the striker.
That means that Grealish could push Dewsbury-Hall out to the wide left, where he in turn would displace Iliman Ndiaye, another £6.5m midfielder who is an astonishing 12.8% of teams at the time of writing, for reasons that are frankly unclear to me. Everton have some relatively gentle early fixtures but have had a tricky pre-season, are coming into the new campaign on poor form, and Ndiaye has never been a free-scoring player.
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Of course, all three players also have to share space with Dwight McNeil, who was Everton’s greatest creative force and best goalscorer before going down with injuries last season. Frankly, it’s very hard to predict who will play in which role, and how the minutes will be divided.
Grealish’s arrival means I’m moving away from Dewsbury-Hall, although I still think he’s a potentially excellent inclusion in teams which intend to invest in three starting-level forwards. I’d rather spend £0.5m more on Caicedo and have a safe pair of hands who should provide steady early returns until we have a clearer picture on where the money should go, and that’s doubly true if I plan to start with five midfielders.
Right now, I’m steering clear of Everton’s attacking assets until we know more about their usage and we’re confident of their form. I won’t be signing Grealish, I certainly won’t be buying Ndiaye, and I’ll only take Dewsbury-Hall if I can find a really compelling use for that extra £0.5m.
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