The RJW63 Official Jack Grealish Appreciation Thread

[NurembergVillan]

7 minutes ago, praisedmambo said:

We had to buy a lot of players though. We spent a lot, but it was spread relatively thinly for a Premier League team. I'm not sure we had much other choice either. We were obviously in for two more by all accounts. 

Absolutely.  We're at Phase 1 of becoming a PL team again.  West Ham brought on a £24m winger to replace and £18m winger, and already had a £35m winger on the opposite side.  We finished the game with £7m El Ghazi on one side and Elmo on the other...

To bring this back on topic, I think Jack is playing like Rooney did a few years ago - he's trying too hard and coming too deep in trying to take all the responsibility.  As it stands, we don't really have an "out ball". Those West Ham wingers are rapid and tricky, but ours (maybe Trez will be) just aren't.  Jack can't pick the ball up and ping it out wide which gives the team chance to drive forward.  They're all running it through the midfield which means a slow build-up and opposition have chance to get back.

Liverpool, Spurs and City, who are miles ahead of us, have electric pace out wide which means they can pass into space and the midfield can move up as a unit, looking for space.  We're relying on trying to pass it through teams and you just can't do that at this level.

[villa89]

I agree with the sentiment that he is trying too hard. He's not helped by the lack of quality around him though. El Ghazi and Jota were awful last night and Taylor offers absolutely nothing in terms of an out ball on the left. 

[Dr_Pangloss]

There's a big element of trying too hard, and it's leading to poor decisions. Something he did in the first half exemplifies his season so far. From a freekick on the left hand side he puts a wonderful in-swinging ball in which El Ghazi really should have got his head to and if he did he would have most likely scored. Probably 10 mins later we won a freekick in almost the exact same position. This time Grealish plays a one two, tries to dribble past a number of West Ham players, loses the ball and wastes a great opportunity. Why not look for the same sort of delivery as the first time around, it was a cracking and extremely dangerous ball that's very hard to defend against. 

He needs a talking to. He is playing without enough discipline, not using the ball intelligently enough, not making the right decisions often enough, trying to do too many things, trying to hold onto it for too long. 

There's a good amount of talent there and whilst I'd like to think Smith can get through to him, he's going to have to do a lot more and play a lot more clinically to for instance, make the England squad and have a chance of playing. He's someway off right now.

Edited September 17, 2019 by Dr_Pangloss

[omariqy]

I thought he was the best player on the pitch for the first 65 minutes. Got home and watched the game again and nothing has changed my mind. Everything went through him and first half he was brilliant. After they went down to 10 men he looked very poor. Wasteful. However, it was not surprising as he was everywhere. He looked shattered. Likewise McGinn was anonymous for most of the 2nd half and I think it was the same thing for him. 

[Sam-AVFC]

3 minutes ago, omariqy said:

I thought he was the best player on the pitch for the first 65 minutes. Got home and watched the game again and nothing has changed my mind. Everything went through him and first half he was brilliant. After they went down to 10 men he looked very poor. Wasteful. However, it was not surprising as he was everywhere. He looked shattered. Likewise McGinn was anonymous for most of the 2nd half and I think it was the same thing for him. 

I've seen you say this a few times - is there somewhere to find whole games or do you just stick Sky on record?

[Lord Willard]

Watched the game. Rewatched highlights. Jack was our best attacking player by miles!!!! Every decent attack was going through him. 

I think he is trying too hard atm but doesn't help when he had a decent enough game and everyone's calling for him to be dropped! 

I would start Kodija or Davies. That would help him.

[omariqy]

53 minutes ago, Sam-AVFC said:

I've seen you say this a few times - is there somewhere to find whole games or do you just stick Sky on record?

Either on sky or if you google 'reddit football download' or 'full matches and shows' you will see it

[lapal_fan]

Jack was good last night and he worked **** hard. 

I can forgive sloppy passes (as frustrating as they are when we're trying to win a game) if you can see he's trying to do the right things.

I actually think out of the midfield three last night McGinn was the worst.  

Let me first say I understand he came closest to scoring with a good effort, which was excellently saved, and a long range effort which was fairly easy..

But I think I could count on one hand how many times McGinn passed to another midfielder, he just seemed... "impatient" last night to me. 

Our best opportunities came from when we put a few passes together, picked up the tempo and passed and moved into space - McGinn hardly did any of that. 

If you watch the highlights though, you'll see him going close and what-not, but I really don't think he had a good game. He also need to drop back a bit, because that causes Jack to sit, which is completely counter-intuitive. 

There was a time when Guilbert had a back pass towards our corner flag, Guilbert had Elmo up the line, but had to chip the ball to get it to him, while McGinn, who passed it to him, turned his back and started walking away! 

[omariqy]

1 hour ago, lapal_fan said:

Jack was good last night and he worked **** hard. 

I can forgive sloppy passes (as frustrating as they are when we're trying to win a game) if you can see he's trying to do the right things.

I actually think out of the midfield three last night McGinn was the worst.  

Let me first say I understand he came closest to scoring with a good effort, which was excellently saved, and a long range effort which was fairly easy..

But I think I could count on one hand how many times McGinn passed to another midfielder, he just seemed... "impatient" last night to me. 

Our best opportunities came from when we put a few passes together, picked up the tempo and passed and moved into space - McGinn hardly did any of that. 

If you watch the highlights though, you'll see him going close and what-not, but I really don't think he had a good game. He also need to drop back a bit, because that causes Jack to sit, which is completely counter-intuitive. 

There was a time when Guilbert had a back pass towards our corner flag, Guilbert had Elmo up the line, but had to chip the ball to get it to him, while McGinn, who passed it to him, turned his back and started walking away! 

I agree with this. Grealish gave the ball away maybe 2 or 3 times. A couple of those times he was waiting for runs to be made and everyone was running into each other not offering an option and he ended up giving it away. He was our best player by miles. If he scores his chance then people are giving him MOTM. Fine lines.

[KenjiOgiwara]

3 hours ago, Lord Willard said:

Watched the game. Rewatched highlights. Jack was our best attacking player by miles!!!! Every decent attack was going through him. 

I think he is trying too hard atm but doesn't help when he had a decent enough game and everyone's calling for him to be dropped! 

I would start Kodija or Davies. That would help him.

I thought he had an alright match, BUT he really needs to learn to move the ball off quicker in the PL. Very often you can see our off ball movement dying cause he just spends an eternity treading the ball. This is a seriously poor part of his game. It obviously works when you are a big fish team in the league, but in the prem we need to be able to do things quicker, or we won't be good enough to get goals.  

[avfc1982am]

I don't think Jack is the problem or has one. I think Smith does. 

What was interesting from the interview after the game last night was that Jack mentioned dropping deep and said he had to now he was in the Prem. I'm not sure about that tbh. If these are the instructions to Jack especially then here lies one of the issues with regards to players being higher up the pitch and closer to Wes. 

If Smith and Co are expecting Jack to drop 40 or 50 yards off the frontline to receive the ball from the back then he is on a hiding to nothing when expected to make up the ground to support the attack. It's not going to work when the CF is swamped and we need to move in the final 3rd much quicker. Jack needs to stay in the opponents half when we have the ball and dictate from there and around the center circle. It allows him to stay closer to Wes and keep him on his toes, move into the spaces around him more and be a nuisance. Any deeper and his position is wasted in my opinion. He's also going to have far more energy to keep driving at defences something which is key to him and us having a decent season.

We are nowhere near form yet however we've played 4 mid table teams and been close in all games. Even against vastly more expensive and stable squads. We are literally a couple of tweaks and certain players stepping up from being a decent team. If we sort the width out and personnel and let Jack sit in opponents half more we get better quicker. If this doesn't happen then I fear Shit Street is around the corner.

I'm not questioning Smith either but you can't preach about attacking teams to then allow your best players to not play to their strengths. He needs to resolve this and the width issues quickly. Defensively we are decent but it is coming at a cost at the moment. 

Edited September 17, 2019 by avfc1982am

[wazzap24]

 

There’s about 9/10 little clips of our highlights in here, not including the clip of the red card.

Jack is heavily involved in about 7 of them and was key to pretty much all our decent chances bar one or two.

Gave the ball away a few times 2nd half and made a couple of poor decisions that’s all, it doesn’t mean he had a poor game. 

There’s nothing wrong with his form. There’s more to come, but he’s doing great. 

 

 

[Danishlad]

Jack was awesome last night. See highlights for reason why. 

[Keyblade]

12 minutes ago, wazzap24 said:

 

There’s about 9/10 little clips of our highlights in here, not including the clip of the red card.

Jack is heavily involved in about 7 of them and was key to pretty much all our decent chances bar one or two.

Gave the ball away a few times 2nd half and made a couple of poor decisions that’s all, it doesn’t mean he had a poor game. 

There’s nothing wrong with his form. There’s more to come, but he’s doing great. 

 

 

It's always been like this. He's always at the heart of everything good we do. But unless he's getting goals or assists he's always going to have to do more for some people, and a couple of misplaced passes become that much more significant.

[wazzap24]

9 minutes ago, Keyblade said:

It's always been like this. He's always at the heart of everything good we do. But unless he's getting goals or assists he's always going to have to do more for some people, and a couple of misplaced passes become that much more significant.

He could quite easily have 3 assists against his name in the past two games. 

He can’t finish people’s chances for them and he can’t stop Kevin Friend being a clueless knob. Fine margins. 

He’s not above criticism. He was wasteful in possession at times, he did make the wrong choices on a couple of occasions, but he didn’t have a bad game by any measure.The result influences the opinion of the performance, which is fair enough we all do it. A lot of people were disappointed with the result and it reflects in the player threads. 

My only thing with him is, can he add the goals to his game that we need from a true number 10, or now he’s maturing physically and clearly has a great engine, could he be better as a proper box to box number 8. 

[Vive_La_Villa]

48 minutes ago, Keyblade said:

It's always been like this. He's always at the heart of everything good we do. But unless he's getting goals or assists he's always going to have to do more for some people, and a couple of misplaced passes become that much more significant.

Even when he has a poor game he was our most influential player and on another night could made 2 and scored 1. 

If only he just tried to keep that ball in play at the end through instead of trying to score. Davis would have had a tap in. 

Off topic but I also wonder if Wesley had scored his second header if there would have been VAR check. He looked on to me. 

[Pimlico_Villa]

I think he realises that there are other players ahead of him to play the 10 role for England, so he is insisting on playing an 8 role for us to show his versatility and maximise his chances of selection England.

I only think he wants to play for England to boost his commercial profile and to make it more likely for someone to pay his £60M release fee. Especially with a major tournament next summer.

Very, very selfish and Smith should be more authoritative instead of letting him play where he wants to play. 

[Mat Kendrick's Dentist]

41 minutes ago, Pimlico_Villa said:

I think he realises that there are other players ahead of him to play the 10 role for England, so he is insisting on playing an 8 role for us to show his versatility and maximise his chances of selection England.

I only think he wants to play for England to boost his commercial profile and to make it more likely for someone to pay his £60M release fee. Especially with a major tournament next summer.

Very, very selfish and Smith should be more authoritative instead of letting him play where he wants to play. 

Massive assumptions galore

[screwdriver]

Jack is our version of gerrard and baggio. If he only gets 8/10 he's had a bad game.

even if he's injured he must play.

He made two bad passes against west ham. they went straight to their number 8. people always remember the bad stuff when youre the main man. if youre constantly crap people remember the amazing things (alan hutton for instance)

but other than that he was the main man...as usual

 

[screwdriver]

When jack plays for england it will be mass hysteria again. just like beckham days totally box office.

maybe thats what gareth southgate wants to avoid.....he doesnt want that circus. squad getting papp'd on a pre match walk about.  so not selecting jack until he's bent one into the top corner against all of the big 6 is his way of keeping control.