Happy Jack is back

... and ready to put a smile on the face of football

Jack Grealish is starting to look more like his old self again. And nobody enjoys being Jack Grealish more than Jack Grealish.

There is a part of me that wanted to wake up today to hazy images of Jack celebrating Everton’s weekend victory by inhaling hippy crack in a Rio nightclub with Bonnie Blue and the Tate brothers. Sadly, he was probably at home on the sofa with Sasha watching Tommy Fleetwood like me.

It’s 2025 and that’s what footballers do now.

Jack Grealish has been one of the last of the football throw-backs these last ten years. A socks-down sorcerer who could charm the ball like he did the fans ready and willing to throw themselves at his talented feet once the victory was won and the spoils were there to be added while the night was still young. The Brummie Best.

In an era when you are more likely to find a Premier League star glugging protein shakes in an ice bath than downing Dom Perignon at a cocktail bar, I sometimes wonder if it’s worth aspiring to be a top baller anymore. Where’s the fun in yoga with collagen shots?

Jack Grealish does fun. He has always known how to get a kick out of his career and has lived life to the full and beyond. My Way. And you get the impression that – despite the lectures and the fines – he’s always played his best football when his candle has been glowing at both ends. On Sunday, at his new Hill Dickinson show home, he was on fire again.

In his Aston Villa prime 5 years ago, Plan ‘A’ was ‘give the ball to Jack’. So were Plans B to Z. He was the centre of attention for team-mates and opponents alike and Jack wasn’t complaining. Everton have Iliman Ndiaye on song and Tyler Dibling on the way but when David Moyes wants to try to control games, Grealish will be the option he’ll be pointing to from the touchline.

It was interesting that of all the qualities that Jack put back on display on Sunday, it was his ball retention that Moyes was keen to highlight. When he’s at his cajoling best, the other 21 players on the field need another ball throwing on for them to play with. It’s the very quality that persuaded Pep Guardiola to part with £100 million. Control.

It’s a bit of a contradiction if you think about it. The very best coach of the very best team in England at the time was signing the country’s freest footballing spirit on and off the field to help give Manchester City more control over games. It felt like the BBC bringing in Russell Brand to strengthen the corporation’s moral fibre. It never quite seemed the perfect match.

Half-a-dozen major medals later, you can argue all you like about whether Grealish’s time at City was a success or not. What already seems beyond argument is that Jack is best suited to a team in which he is the mainspring. A team like Everton. By his own ever honest admission, he hasn’t been enjoying football like he wants and needs to these last couple of years. There’s a mischievous smile on his face again.

Comparisons with Paul Gascoigne are unfair and unnecessary. Both of them are special for being the unique individuals they are. What they undoubtedly share in common is a popularity with team-mates and contemporaries. There isn’t an ounce of harm in either of them. Not sober anyway. Grealish confessed yesterday that if he’d fallen out of love with football a little these last couple of years, it was down to him and him only.

Most public figures are misunderstood. It’s an inevitable consequence of being paraded on a social media catwalk where you try to display your best side while others take deep dives into your skeleton collection. Jack has given interviews in which he said he would probably have become a nightclub promoter if he hadn’t been a footballer. He doesn’t always help himself.

Like Gascoigne, he’s given us the best look at who he really is inside the white lines of the football field. Bravery on the pyramid stage comes in two forms… a physical valour to take the hits and a courage of confidence to keep showing and asking for the ball when your team needs you to change a game. Grealish has the daring to be a winner on both counts.

Yes, he knows how to work a referee. That is a key element of the control that he offers any side. Like a running back in the NFL, he can move you up the field down-by-down. You need a bit of front and lip to continually tease and tempt defenders to fall into the trap of committing to a challenge. Jack has plenty of both when he squares up to full-backs and waits for them to make their move. Go ahead, punk, make my day.

The half-mast socks are part of the poker game. Like a temptress attracting vulgar stares with a plunging neckline, he is cheeky and brazen, but the wilder tackles don’t hurt any less for the award of a free-kick. Those famous calves of his are buff for a reason. His legs take more than their fair share of cheap shots and yet he keeps coming back for more.

But the magic move that really spooks defenders is when Grealish takes the ring road and inches far enough past his man to squeeze across the kind of ball that set up the opener for Ndiaye yesterday. Now, he’s really got you where he wants you. Now, he can try to run you again or cut inside and set up the kind of chance from which James Garner scored and Dwight McNeil should have done.

Did Grealish have the licence and confidence to go both ways at City? Only he and Pep know that. Moyes will let him go with his instincts.

Jack wants to be loved. So do I, so do we all. Football maybe isn’t the best profession if you’re looking for universal affection but even when Grealish frustrates you with his falls from grace and gravity, it’s difficult not to retain an appreciation for the singularity and style of the man. In a game of carefully-coached clones that can give and receive a pass on half-turn auto-pilot, a personality player is a breath of fresh air. Jack Grealish might just have found room to breathe again.

He turns 30 next month. I can’t see him joining a monastery just yet but Sasha and daughter Mila are by far the most important girls in his harem now and the early signs are that he will return all the love that Everton show him in kind. Shares in the Chiltern Firehouse might take a dip but Grealish still has champagne corks to pop when the time is right.

Happy Jack is back.