Why Jack Grealish is free and flying again at Everton - what David Moyes has asked him to do differently, the shackles that slowed him at Man City... and how he's about to get even better: THE BREAKDOWN

Jack Grealish for England. So read Everton’s X bio mere moments after their on-loan hero netted a dramatic late winner to end Crystal Palace’s 18-game unbeaten streak.

It’s been nearly a year since Grealish last pulled on a Three Lions shirt and it will be longer still, with the winger’s name missing again from Thomas Tuchel’s squad for England’s matches against Wales and Latvia this week.

But there’s a World Cup coming up and there’s chap with a ponytail who wants to have his say.

Grealish is influencing games again. He’s bringing fans to their feet again. He’s driving at defences, he’s creating chances, he’s doing all those things that thrilled England supporters and made them clamour for him at the Euros four years ago.

Grealish is playing like a free man again, unshackled from Pep Guardiola’s regimented structure and, in David Moyes, has found a manager who wants him to be Jack Grealish again. Take risks, take on your man. He’s playing like a main man again, too.

Everything goes through Grealish. Of all the passes made by Everton players that move the ball substantially towards their opponent’s goal, Grealish receives twice as many as anyone else. He touches the ball in the final third more than any other Everton player. He carries the ball towards goal more often than any of his team-mates, and more often than most players in the Premier League.

The only winger with more ‘progressive carries’ - when a player dribbles a significant distance towards the opposition's goal - than Grealish so far this season is former City team-mate Jeremy Doku. 

Ironically, Grealish would likely be more suited to City’s style of play this season than ever before, now that Guardiola has also decided to hop on board the counter-attacking bandwagon.

Grealish’s 17 chances created in the league for Everton puts him above all players in the top flight except Bruno Fernandes. 

Grealish mustered just 12 assists in 94 league matches for City. Seven games into his Everton stint and he’s already on four. Two in the win against Brighton, another couple to help beat Wolves.

It’s not that Moyes affords Grealish the freedom to do whatever he wants, as Dean Smith did back in his days at Aston Villa - when he was allowed to roam around, on the basis he would pick the ball up at some point and do something magic with it - even though he’s playing in a similar position on the left, with the chance to drift more centrally.

Grealish still fits into Moyes’s structure, but is playing in a team that thrives in transition and welcomes the chaos. There’s few who love to exploit it more than Grealish.

It’s just that was the opposite of what Guardiola wanted his players to do. He wanted Grealish to stay wide, draw his man, and then either win a foul or recycle possession.

Perhaps contrary to his reputation, Moyes has always given his flair players the licence to take risks. Steven Pienaar in his first spell at Everton, Mohammed Kudus and Lucas Paqueta at West Ham. That’s one reason why Grealish has already attempted more dribbles in seven games this season than he did in the entirety of last term. Three more and he’ll match his tally from the season before, too.

His nine dribbles against Wolves was more than in all but one of his league matches for Manchester City - and that came back in 2022.

He receives the ball much deeper now, with more space to attack. And not just by carrying the ball, but by passing it too.

Against Palace, before scoring the winner, he played seven passes into the final third. He never did it more often in a league game for City, and the two occasions he matched that figure were when he played in central midfield. His 14 crosses from open play is already only two fewer than last term, and as many as the entirety of the 2023-24 season.

Guardiola didn’t want Grealish doing what Grealish does best. Moyes does. It should be no surprise to see him thriving once again.

'I don't mean this in an arrogant way, but I do like it when managers say, "You're the footballer, go and do what you want to do",' Grealish said ahead of Everton's recent draw with West Ham. 'I'd rather someone just be like, "When you get the ball Jack, just go and play".

'That's what Moyes says to me. Obviously you have your jobs, you have roles to do without the ball and set-pieces, but he says to me, "When you get the ball, just go and do what you want to do".' 

And, crucially, he now has runners with him. When Grealish gets the ball, his team-mates set off ahead of him. Just look at the game against Wolves and his assist for Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall (below).

Compare these moments, however, to the last league game Grealish started on the wing for City in December 2024, against his former club Villa.

Grealish is frequently out wide, on his own, with little support from his team-mates. No one makes a run ahead of him. 

Instead, on both these occasions, he turns and plays a pass back to Josko Gvardiol, and the ball moves back across to the other side of the pitch.

It’s boring, but Grealish has done his job, in Guardiola's eyes. He’s drawn his full back Matty Cash all the way over to the touchline and stretched Villa as wide as possible, so that City can thread passes through the gaps when he hands possession back to his team-mates.

City have so much possession and their opponents sit so deep, there’s little space for Grealish to drive into. He doesn’t have that problem at Everton. He has oodles of space. And Moyes wants him to exploit it.

Grealish gets a hard time for much of his spell at City. Some of it, by his own admission, was self-inflicted. 

‘I didn’t help myself at times,’ he said recently, especially when it came to his off-field antics. But when you look at his time on the field, especially his creativity, his levels remained pretty consistent.

Take his expected assists per 90 minutes, a figure that measures the quality of the chances he creates for his team-mates, and they have always been steady - whether that’s the Grealish who provided 12 assists in his final season at Villa, the one that set up seven league goals for City in their Treble-winning campaign, or the one that mustered just a single assist in each of the next two seasons.

His numbers this season are better than ever. He’s established a quick understanding with Dewsbury-Hall and Iliman Ndiaye.

And there’s still more to come. Grealish has admitted that Moyes wants him to take more shots. His 1.62 efforts per game is his lowest figure since the 2014-15 season at Villa. 

Moyes wants him to attack the back post more, too. He did that in the second half against Palace and, would you believe it, scored the winner.

Grealish has got that sparkle back at Everton, the swagger returning of a man who once stood shirtless atop Manchester City’s bus after winning the Treble with his arms spread wide to soak in the adulation. The main man, free again.