The RJW63 Official Jack Grealish Appreciation Thread

[rubberman]

Ah - you said FACT in capitals so that's that.

By the way, how do you know Jack works harder than any of the other forwards in the squad? Maybe he does, maybe sancho or rashford or kane does... You (and I) have no idea - (unless you work at St George's Park in which case I apologise). 

[Thug]

50 minutes ago, rubberman said:

Ah - you said FACT in capitals so that's that.

By the way, how do you know Jack works harder than any of the other forwards in the squad? Maybe he does, maybe sancho or rashford or kane does... You (and I) have no idea - (unless you work at St George's Park in which case I apologise). 

No, but the statisticians do...

And pay particular attention to the number of tackles and pressures in the defensive 3rd.

And if you didn't see Southgate's post match interviews when he was ignoring questions about Grealish, and double standards regarding never having played in the premier league (even though he HAD and Phillips HADN'T), then you better go watch them.

Lucky for me, you didn't add Foden to that little list of yours, I hadn't realised how much work off the ball he does.  He's quite the player.

Edited June 15, 2021 by Thug

[barry'sboots]

On 14/06/2021 at 18:23, WallisFrizz said:

Jack still got an assist in this game so I wouldn’t say Coufal stopped him (although credit where it’s due he did well).

Ive heard Stuart Pearce on TalkSPort doing Jack down at every available opportunity and gleeful he didn’t get picked. He’s probably very sore that Jack has had 2 goals and an assist in his last 3 appearances against WH. 

To be fair to Coufal that assist came from the right side when Jack switched.

I have no idea why it took Jack and/or Deano that long to work out that was he needed to do.  Jack can play anywhere - his assist for England came from the RW as well - and should be much more fluid in switching sides/position as far as I am concerned.

[avfc1982am]

Lets get back to being Jack positive and crucify Southgate when we go out.

FWIW I think he will terrorise any team in this compo given the chance. 

[dont_do_it_doug.]

3 hours ago, Tom13 said:

Jack was asked specifically about what Southgate brings a week or two ago and he struggled to answer it. Just said something like "He's England manager so he's obviously a great coach." Now that to me is him struggling for an answer to bring up the team he manages to show his credentials rather than just go straight into what he offers.

For balance I’ve seen Jack attempt to answer the question of what Dean Smith has bought to his game and he has muttered something about confidence and being a Villa fan. 

[barry'sboots]

10 hours ago, chomer said:

Not sure where @blandy got those stats from.

englandstats.com | 1190 Raheem Sterling (2012 - 2021) suggests 7 goals in his last 12 England appearances.  The 7 consist of 3 vs Bulgaria, and 1 vs Croatia, San Marino, Iceland and Kosovo. 

We haven't really played any "big" nations in that time so it's hard to criticise him for not scoring against teams we haven't played.

You can say that he has hardly played for his club side in the second half of the season though!

[villalad21]

Although the video is hilarious people have to realize it's highly edited and clipped.

Using it as "evidence" to prove that Gareth have a vendetta against Grealish is just very silly.

The facts are Grealish is competing with equal talented players and just needs to keep working hard and grabbing the opportunity when given.

 

Edited June 15, 2021 by villalad21

[Tomaszk]

15 minutes ago, villalad21 said:

Although the video is hilarious people have to realize it's highly edited and clipped.

Using it as "evidence" to prove that Gareth have a vendetta against Grealish is just very silly.

The facts are Grealish is competing with equal talented players and just needs to keep working hard and grabbing the opportunity when given.

 

Thanks for keeping it up.

Reaffirms I must be right.

Can always count on you.

[Thug]

24 minutes ago, villalad21 said:

Although the video is hilarious people have to realize it's highly edited and clipped.

Using it as "evidence" to prove that Gareth have a vendetta against Grealish is just very silly.

The facts are Grealish is competing with equal talented players and just needs to keep working hard and grabbing the opportunity when given.

 

 

Because....?

And it's not highly edited.  That's exactly what he said.

Let me ask you, have you ever seen anything like that before? Ever? A reporter asks about a player, and you ignore that player completely and talk about someone else?  Not ONCE, but TWICE in the same interview?

He compared Kane to Shearer in 2017.

Last year he gave his thoughts on what he thought about people comparing Grealish to Gascoigne.  He said he doesn't think it is helpful to compare young players to some of the past greats.  Then went on to list about 5/6 other players that were "obviously" better than Jack, and basically suggested it was his own fans that were making the comparison.  

He was recently asked if he thought Bellingham was like Rio Ferdinand.  Did he list a bunch of players that were "obviously" better than Jude?  Did he say it wasn't helpful to compare to the past great players?  No. He said exactly what he should have said, and what he should've said when asked about Jack -   That these are the kinds of players that he should be trying to emulate etc etc. and gave encouragement to the player - not try to knock him down by saying "oh not a chance.".  [Although admittedly, a rather bizarre comparison question in the first place of Ferdinand and Bellingham]

 

Now I don't give two hoots about this anymore, but to call it silly to believe that he treated Jack differently from the rest of the players is just, well... silly. 

Like I said previously, I think he's over it now, and is starting to appreciate jack for his attributes. - but at that time, he made a monumental tit out of himself.

None of the above is bitterness of him not being picked.  I've already stated that Sterling is a very good player, and we won, and he scored, and that's absolutely fine.  And Jack is carrying a shin injury.

This is just in response to those who believe that Southgate  never had an issue with Jack.

He's picked him in the squad despite his covid rule breaking issues, and crashing his car, and now even though he's not fully fit.  He was all set to bring him on.  I really think he's over it, and is now picking his team on what he believes to be right.  Which is his prerogative. 

Edited June 15, 2021 by Thug

[Keyblade]

5 hours ago, KentVillan said:

I think the truth is more mundane than GS having any personal issues with Jack.

He prefers pacy wingers who run in behind (Sterling, Rashford). He likes to play two holding midfielders. And he prefers his CAM / 10 to be a hard-working presser (so Mount, basically).

Once you set up all these limitations on your thinking, it's hard to see how you keep Grealish, Foden, and Sancho happy. At least one of them is going to be a bench warmer for most of the tournament, probably two of them.

Yeah I don't think he has anything against Jack per se (though I do remember reading about them having issues in Jack's U21 days when he was manager then), but he's just a boring manager ripped straight out of 2000's English football (incidentally when he got a club relegated in his only stint as a club manager). 

There's also a bit of stubbornness in that he doesn't want to cave into pressure and wants to look like he's sticking to his guns, so even though he might think Jack could be useful he'll just purposely not use him to make that point. Basically, it's all just really shit for Jack, who is England's second best player if not best player right now.

[barry'sboots]

9 hours ago, smg said:

Haven’t read all of the thread, Jack is a special performer and has qualities that other outstanding players don’t have, however failing to get a manager to pick him is not a new thing, names like Alan Hudson, Stan Bowles, Tony Curry, Frank Worthington, Matt le Tissier and even Glenn Hoddle to a lesser extent all got fewer caps than their talent deserved because their managers didn’t pick them for whatever reason.

Absolutely agree with this.  Doesn't mean that the managers at the time were right and doesn't excuse Safegate from doing it now.

He's not going to get arrested for not picking Jack - it is not a crime!  I think most accept this (well almost)??

However, a number of us (obviously not all) are massively frustrated watching bland and negative England performances when we believe that Jack's inclusion (coupled with a more progressive approach elsewhere) could see a much brighter England play and dominate games and that we would be in a much better shape to play the better teams later on in the tournament and stand a chance of winning it.

[barry'sboots]

9 hours ago, birdman said:

Yeah he was being an arse for sure however I imagine he was hacked off at being constantly nagged about Jack and was trying (badly) to make a point about other players. You can see the tension in his face and a slight anger I think! Lol

And so he should be.

He was asked a not unreasonable question that he just could not produce a reasonable and logical answer for.

[Tom13]

1 hour ago, villalad21 said:

The facts are Grealish is competing with equal talented players and just needs to keep working hard and grabbing the opportunity when given.

I mean if you can't see that Grealish is (comfortably) above some of his competitors...there's no point listening to any of your opinions.

[MessiWillSignForVilla]

[barry'sboots]

9 hours ago, birdman said:

You're suggesting that there is CURRENTLY an issue (contrary to what Southgate and Grealish say) 

Most people would agree there HAVE been issues In THE PAST likely relating to Jack's off field behaviour. 

Myself and others are suggesting there aren't any current issues and that Jack has been selected on merit and has since built up a good relationship with Southgate.

We're never going to agree obviously so should just put this one to bed until such time there is additional evidence one way or the other. 

Some of us are just trying to understand/rationalise why Safegate would chose not to play his best and most creative player in supposedly the toughest game of the group.  We can't see any logical reason other than the fact that he still has some kind of issue/bears a grudge.

You, and several others, are welcome to disagree with this perspective but I don't see much logical support for his exclusion coming from this camp.  Instead, I am largely seeing a "stop being paranoid" view with little cohesive argument to support it??

Do you also think that Safegate was wise to:

• play a RB at LB in front of Man U's player of the season and the LB who played for the CL winners?
• play a "6" at "8" when he had good "8" options in Mount, Bellingham and Jack?
• play Mount at "10" in front of Jack?
• bring Rashford on in front of Jack?

Do you think that the performance - a stodgy 1-0 win with roughly similar possession and shots stats against an ageing Croatian midfield - justifies these selections? 

[barry'sboots]

8 hours ago, Tom13 said:

What he said was 'goals and assists' wasn't it? And when he said that he was already putting up decent numbers. I mean if Southgate is picking players on how many goals they score it's no wonder we struggle against intelligent opposition.

Yes.  It didn't matter that Jack was often playing as an "8" when he was putting in these numbers and, because we needed it, was shifted to a more offensive wide role and, not surprisingly, his offensive statistic improves. 

[KentVillan]

2 minutes ago, barry'sboots said:

Some of us are just trying to understand/rationalise why Safegate would chose not to play his best and most creative player in supposedly the toughest game of the group.  We can't see any logical reason other than the fact that he still has some kind of issue/bears a grudge.

You, and several others, are welcome to disagree with this perspective but I don't see much logical support for his exclusion coming from this camp.  Instead, I am largely seeing a "stop being paranoid" view with little cohesive argument to support it??

Do you also think that Safegate was wise to:

• play a RB at LB in front of Man U's player of the season and the LB who played for the CL winners?
• play a "6" at "8" when he had good "8" options in Mount, Bellingham and Jack?
• play Mount at "10" in front of Jack?
• bring Rashford on in front of Jack?

Do you think that the performance - a stodgy 1-0 win with roughly similar possession and shots stats against an ageing Croatian midfield - justifies these selections? 

Why a grudge?

Why not just the more obvious fact: Southgate is a very cautious manager, who doesn't like to play more than one creative player.

It's not just Jack who's struggled to feature. It's also Foden, Sancho, Maddison, Alli, etc. At the moment, Foden is the one who's getting minutes, but I think anyone hoping Southgate will start Grealish and Foden (or Grealish and Foden and Sancho) is going to be disappointed.

If Foden got injured, then you'd imagine Grealish would be getting a lot more game time.

Btw, not saying I agree with Southgate on any of this. I think he should be more adventurous against weaker sides. But just not convinced it's a vendetta against Jack.

[Tom13]

That's what scared me about those comments...it made it seem that Southgate's mind is too basic to see that just because Grealish often plays the same position as a Rashford or a Sterling, that he's a completely different player, in a different role.

Edited June 15, 2021 by Tom13

[Frank Raphael]

On 13/06/2021 at 19:47, Davkaus said:

Yes. Jack does lots that sterling doesn't, but he'd kill to have Sterling's goalscoring and assist stats even from last season.

We aren't talking about stats we're talking about finishing. They are not the same thing. 

Total number of goals scored means little if it takes Sterling 20 shots to get the ball in the net once vs someone who only needs four or five shots. Man City create much more than us which is obviously going to help Sterling get his total goal numbers up. 

Sterling is actually a bad finisher and one of the worst in the PL when it comes to one on ones or hitting it first time. 

[barry'sboots]

2 minutes ago, KentVillan said:

Why a grudge?

Why not just the more obvious fact: Southgate is a very cautious manager, who doesn't like to play more than one creative player.

As I said, because we believe that Jack is England's most effective creative player as evidenced by 4 MOTMs in his 6/7 performances and cannot understand why he doesn't get into the team.  You've compared him with Foden but he could equally play at 10, instead of Mount, and would bring a lot more control/attacking threat to the game.  You might argue that Mount does more defensively but I would say that Jack has been pretty strong defensively when asked to play at 8 or 10 by us and also that,with two 6's behind him, that is less relevant.