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In Anfield’s press room on Sunday afternoon, you could have thrown a medium-sized blanket into the air and covered a decent all-time Premier League team. Alan Shearer and Daniel Sturridge up front, perhaps. Theo Walcott and John Barnes on the wings. Milan Baros and Vladimir Smicer offered a Czech connection. Lee Hendrie and Jason McAteer for your streets-never-forgetting quota.
This only happens at the biggest matches and Liverpool vs Arsenal was Sunday’s only show in town. If that disappointed those eyeing up a full afternoon on the sofa, it was prescient too. A thought dawned as I sat in my seat during the first half.
Manchester City may well not be a Premier League club next season. Manchester United are in their own shame spiral and should be left in a league of one to work it out. Brighton are upstarts for sure, but still only that. Chelsea and Tottenham are in stages of transition and maybe always will be. Neither have finished in the Premier League’s top two since 2017.
Liverpool and Arsenal has never felt like thePremier League rivalry: too late-1980s coded, too steeped in history, too much missing each other and taking it in turns to surge, too many other clubs complicating things with their geographical rivalries.
But this could become its time to shine. Sunday felt seismic. Its importance – either Arsenal making a statement or Liverpool hauling themselves into a title race – hung heavy in the air. The atmosphere was hardly the stuff of fevered vitriol, but there was absolutely a prickly dislike.
Liverpool are their own work in progress, of course. There are still component parts that must improve to match the champions. Milos Kerkez, aka the man who refuses to win a duel, is simply not good enough. Florian Wirtz is still impacting games in a way that just about passes for satisfactory but it’s been 15 months and so many millions and we’re still waiting for a high-profile match to be bent to his will.
Still, we have the makings of something: feistiness, lots of booing and gnashing of teeth, enough talented young attacking players to make it fun for a while, the occasional scrap. If nobody else in the Big Six is going to step up, I could get used to Liverpool and Arsenal properly hating each other.
Are Brighton in the title race?
There are two relatively simple pieces of evidence in the affirmative here: Brighton are third in the Premier League and they have beaten Arsenal and Manchester City without conceding a goal. That alone means Fabian Hurzeler’s team merits being in the wider conversation.
The numbers are phenomenal, too. Nobody has scored more goals than Brighton. Nobody has kept more clean sheets. Nobody has created more big chances. Nobody has scored more set-piece goals. Nobody has won the ball with more regularity in the opposition third of the pitch. They are the real deal.
Of course, there are caveats. The Conference League will get harder in the knockout rounds, eventually. The squad is not as deep as those around them. The shift from a centre forward presence to a fun band of zippy attackers has caught opposition coaches off guard and they may adapt.
But, right now, why would you focus on any reasons to doubt Brighton. They are magnificent and they are magnificent to watch. They are appointment television and that’s enough for me.
Nottingham Forest and the xG problem
Oliver Glasner is now officially in firefighting mode. After Nottingham Forest again created the better chances, again failed to score and again lost, Glasner spoke at length about players needing to buy into his era – and the chance of yet another managerial change at the City Ground if they don’t.
"If it doesn't work, the sixth manager will come in and it will be the same… then the seventh and it'll be the same."
A frustrated Oliver Glasner speaking after Nottingham Forest's 2-0 defeat to Brentford pic.twitter.com/U1XAhT2Gqj
His entire campaign so far has been baffling. The xG table has Forest third and only three teams have created more big chances, yet Glasner’s group are the lowest scorers in the division. They spectacularly fail to finish their dinner, make individual mistakes in defence and have proven incapable of stopping setbacks ruining the entire game plan.
The problem is that the numbers only hint at what may happen in the future. With the mood in the fanbase eternally chaotic because their club has long matched that vibe, Glasner knows he needs a squad that is fighting to shift what already feels like an ingrained pattern. From what he said at Brentford on Saturday afternoon, the culture within the club is fragmented.
Gameweek 9 highlights
Player of the weekend – Evanilson (Bournemouth)
A brilliant Premier League striker whose form continues to go under the radar as a result of where he plays his football.
Evanilson presses, creates and scores goals, this time for the fourth league game in a row. And Bournemouth have now won six straight games without conceding.
Evanilson has six goals and assists across his last six games for Bournemouth – including three Man of the Match ratings!
Erling Haaland is the only player with more Premier League G/A this season than Evanilson. pic.twitter.com/zFlMwFRni1
Villain of the weekend – Lisandro Martinez (Manchester United)
The other week, Lisandro Martinez publicly criticised his club’s hierarchy for a failure to invest adequately in the squad.
Well hear this, pal: you cost £60m, you keep getting injured despite seemingly always being available for Argentina, you have been the worst player in the Premier League so far this season and your lack of discipline is a joke. Jason Wilcox should come out and say it.
ANFIELD — The last time Arsenal won at Anfield, Mikel Arteta got booked. That time, there was definitely no touchline discrimination from match officials because it was 2012 and Arteta was playing for the victors in central midfield. This one took his team clear at the top, again. It’s beginning to feel ominous once more.
Liverpool and Arsenal has never felt like the Premier League rivalry: too late-1980s coded, too steeped in history, too much missing each other and taking it in turns to surge, too many other clubs complicating things with their geographical rivalries.
But this could become its time to shine. Sunday felt seismic. Its importance – either Arsenal making a statement or Liverpool hauling themselves into a title race – hung heavy in the air. The atmosphere was hardly the stuff of fevered vitriol, but there was absolutely a prickly dislike.
Arsenal won because they took a lead, quite simply. You have to go all the way back to February for the last time that Arteta’s team dropped any Premier League points from a winning position and they have led an awful lot of league games since. That was at Molineux, the late 2-2 and mini psychodrama. They don’t even have those much anymore.
They also won because they pressed high and won the ball. If that seemed to surprise Alisson and Jeremy Jacquet, there was a decent excuse. Last season, only Brighton won possession in the final third more often than Arsenal. So far this season, Brighton are still top but Arsenal rank down in eighth. The Gunners have been more circumspect, more controlled. Hence the criticism from the aesthetes.
Arteta has turned his team into serial lead-keepers (Photo: PA)
This was billed as Liverpool’s opportunity to force their way into a title race and they fell short. Andoni Iraola’s side tested Arsenal before half-time, rattling a crossbar and Arteta’s resolve. Arsenal’s manager simultaneously called for calm while screaming at the top of his voice. Declan Rice did his own version of the same act after a short passing failure.
Liverpool’s problem? They proceeded to get worse rather than better. The introductions from the bench only made their attack more piecemeal and fragmented, as if scoring an equaliser had to come in the style of the final challenge on Supermarket Sweep. They needed composure, not a mad mass of ingredients.
At these times, you call upon your creative influences. Nobody really expected Milos Kerkez to haul Liverpool back into the game, because he is a man who simply refuses to keep his head or win a duel. You cannot expect the new signings or the substitute academy kids to make the difference against experienced heads.
What about Florian Wirtz, who cost more than £100m and has been here 15 months? He had three shots, none of which were on target. He failed to create a chance. He failed to complete a dribble. He played lots of pretty passes but none that actually caused any panic for the best defence in the league. Which is sort of the point.
After the game, Arsenal’s own £100m man – and goal creator on Sunday – spoke on the pitch to the media with the broadest grin on his face. If you want to win a title, your most expensive parts have to turn up in the biggest games. Rice, to quote Andy Gray back in the day, does that time and time and time again.
Wirtz does it in fits and starts. Liverpool will grow stronger; this is clearly only the beginning of the journey. Arsenal can barely get any stronger than this. They win whenever they go in front, they manage big matches like a team of bouncers and they have a three-point lead at the top of the table.
As the banner at one end of Anfield read, “Arsenal run this country again”. It’s hard to find many arguments to offer a repudiation of such a forthright show of dominance.
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Jamie Carragher should think twice before questioning a club’s ambitions again.
The former Liverpool defender is accustomed to seeing his name in headlines, but this week marked a remarkable chapter in his punditry career as he challenged – and seemingly lost – a war of words with Aston Villa supporters.
Speaking across several media platforms, Carragher eulogised Unai Emery and repeatedly stressed his suitability for the Manchester United job, which is currently vacant.
Few would disagree with that assessment. But when the former England international suggested Villa must accept their place in the football chain and, crucially, told supporters to “shut the f*** up”, the mood soured.
At best, Carragher’s verdict was clumsy and uncouth. At worst, it was disrespectful to any club, let alone one of Villa’s stature.
Aston Villa will initiate legal action against Jamie Carragher for his unacceptable insults about the Club and its fans.
Aston Villa will not allow anyone to stop our ascension in English and European football.
It prompted a scarcely believable response from co-owner Nassef Sawiris, who announced plans to begin legal proceedings against the pundit over his “unacceptable insults” about the club and its supporters.
“Aston Villa will not allow anyone to stop our ascension in English and European football,” the social media post added.
Carragher was quick to apologise. It is unlikely that genuine fear of legal action prompted his public backtrack. More likely, it was a recognition that the row was rapidly spiralling into a public relations disaster.
And yet it is Villa, not Carragher, who emerge from this debacle with egg on their face.
Suggesting the 48-year-old can somehow halt Villa’s rise is nonsensical. As for legal action, what form would that even take? How can a club sue someone for expressing an opinion, however unpalatable, that is grounded in some fact?
Unai Emery has transformed the club into a force in English and European football (Photo: Getty)
It was a head-spinning escalation in what had previously felt like a storm in a teacup.
Yet such is the strength of feeling at Villa that Sawiris, who rarely communicates publicly, felt compelled to make his anger known.
After a summer in which Villa lost several key players to Premier League rivals, the prospect of Emery also jumping ship is understandably alarming.
The club’s inability to compete financially in the transfer market, coupled with the constant need to sell their best players, has created an underlying current of frustration at Villa Park. There is a growing sense that they are being frozen out by the establishment.
For the rich and powerful, that will not wash. We live in an era in which the Premier League is shaped by nation states, private equity firms and self-made entrepreneurs, none of whom are accustomed to being told no.
Carragher is not the first pundit to face the wrath of a Premier League club. His colleague Gary Neville was banned from attending a Nottingham Forest game in 2025 after criticising owner Evangelos Marinakis.
In 2020, former Leeds United co-owner Andrea Radrizzani defended a tweet mocking Karen Carney’s coverage of the club, while this season Hull City chairman Acun Ilicali took aim at Joe Cole and Carlton Cole following their admittedly crass comments about the team and city.
In recent months, Everton were ordered to pay Burnley damages after breaching financial regulations during the 2021-22 season, while an independent appeal board upheld the six-point deduction imposed on Leicester City following a protracted dispute with the Premier League.
Remember the good old days when the only contests in football were fought between the white lines? The willingness of club owners to resort to legal proceedings at the first opportunity is a worrying trend that shows no signs of abating.
In Villa’s case, the latest incident felt particularly petulant. Carragher’s comments were inconsequential. They should have prompted little more than an indifferent shrug, rather than the threat of a legal battle.
Tribalism, once the preserve of supporters, should not so readily influence the thinking of those ultimately responsible for running the sport.
It was also entirely unnecessary. Villa’s focus should be on a week in which they face trips to the Nou Camp and Old Trafford – perhaps the clearest evidence yet of their standing among the big hitters.
Instead, they have attracted unwanted attention and raised further questions about their credentials among the elite.
“We’ve conquered before. We’re ready for more,” read a tifo at a recent Villa game. It is a message the club would do well to heed.
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Tottenham 2-0 Crystal Palace(Gray 25, Van Hecke 73’)
TOTTENHAM HOTSPUR STADIUM – For the first time in a long time, the vibes at Tottenham are superb again.
Well, for tangible reasons anyway. There was a swell of optimism coming into the season off the back of a record-breaking transfer window that saw the club open their pockets and splash over £340m on new signings. A poor start to the campaign saw Spurs dwelling in and around the relegation zone once more, but they have now pieced together three wins in a row and are unbeaten over their last four having most recently seen off Crystal Palace.
Saturday night largely swung on a VAR-advised red card early in the first half, with Jean-Philippe Mateta judged to have gone in too high on Micky van de Ven’s Achilles during a sliding challenge. Soon after, Mohammed Kudus whipped in a delicious corner onto the head of Archie Gray, who nodded home to score only his third senior goal, two of which have come against Palace.
The Eagles fought resolutely to keep the scoreline down, though offered very little threat on the counter and seemed content to merely lose 1-0 – a plan that came unstuck when Jan Paul van Hecke bundled the ball over the line from a Mateus Fernandes cross. For long stretches of the contest, this felt like an open training session designed to improve Tottenham’s proficiency in breaking down deep blocks. By the end of the 90 minutes, 2-0 indeed seemed flattering to Palace.
In competitive sports, winning and losing are habits. For the last couple of years, Spurs have found themselves feverishly addicted to the latter. It’s a trend they must buck if they are to be considered a serious football team again.
Spurs have won three in a row (Photo: Getty)
Tottenham have long needed a stable foundation to build on. That was the rationale behind appointing the seemingly-sensible Thomas Frank as head coach to replace the trick-or-treat Ange Postecoglou, though that ended in disaster as he was, if anything, a bit too vanilla for a club so synonymous with chaos.
So, obviously, the eventual pivot was to give almost total autonomy to Roberto De Zerbi, one of football’s fieriest managers. Yet he has found a way to channel his own madness into a winning method.
De Zerbi stuck his neck out to ensure Tottenham captured countryman Sandro Tonali from Newcastle United, beating Arsenal and Manchester City to his signature. The club’s first £100m signing, the sense was Spurs owed this particular deal to De Zerbi as a sort of “thank you” for keeping them up last season.
In the meanwhile, they were also wrapping up the £85m of prospective midfield partner Fernandes from West Ham United, stumping up when Manchester United refused to do so.
It took until October 24 for Tonali and Fernandes to actually start together in the double pivot, yet they looked like a pairing who had been closely acquainted for a decade, walking all over Chelsea in a famous 2-0 triumph at Stamford Bridge. Fernandes was named Player of the Match for his all-action performance.
The evolution of this partnership continued with the visit of Palace. Granted, the majority of the game came at the caveat of a one-man advantage, Tonali and Fernandes were still the engine driving Tottenham forward.
There was barely a flaw to pick out in either of their performances. Both were industrious and maverick in equal amount, bringing the perfect equilibrium when calm heads were needed to navigate through Palace. The plaudits will inevitably go to Gray and Van Hecke for their goals, but that was a mature performance that may not have been possible without the Premier League’s newest elite midfield pairing.
While Spurs’ most major concern remains in the final third where they lack natural scorers (it seemed fitting that two defenders came up with the goals here), they are now able to safely control matches at their own tempo again. The tactical pendulum that determines this sport’s most successful patterns has whipped back the way of possession football, and Tottenham are primed to benefit from that.
It will be difficult for Tonali and Fernandes to individually live up to their respective price tags, but hey, winning cures everything. If Tottenham are successful with them in the side, no one will care how much they cost. They are now up to the dizzying heights of eighth in the Premier League and three points off the top five. De Zerbi’s revolution has liftoff.
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STAMFORD BRIDGE — Manchester United: part football club, part conclave, part stay of execution.
The implosion at Chelsea will surely be the end of Michael Carrick. By the end, his shoulders had slumped just enough to give the look of a manager who knows the game is up. He was in charge at Stamford Bridge only because the United hierarchy had not got their ducks in a row to anoint a successor. Accordingly, they left a lame one in the dugout.
The fact Carrick finally got his system right only exposed how badly he has been let down. The job has become the ultimate hiding to nothing.
But first – and bear with us here – a word of defence for Jason Wilcox (sort of), whose day began with the travelling fans calling him a wanker and ended with having to watch the results of the woefully inept summer he oversaw.
United did not just collapse because the entire back four was AWOL for Morgan Rogers’ opener – nor because for a centre-back so small, Lisandro Martinez performed an impressively high elbow on Wesley Fofana.
Fernandes returned as captain after being dropped against Bournemouth (Photo: Reuters)
Any hope of avoiding another shameful result disintegrated when United were at their best. Bruno Fernandes covered more than six kilometres of ground in the first half, a stinging rebuke to the fiercest criticism of the captain – that he is not willing to put in the hard yards and shirks responsibility. When it mattered, he blazed United’s best chance over the bar. Amad Diallo’s finishing was much of the same.
Which leads back to Wilcox, and the reason either of them were in those positions in the first place. In the absence of Benjamin Sesko, Carrick has no centre-forward. That ought to be on Wilcox, but the rot goes higher than that. Who were the candidates, at the price-point Jim Ratcliffe makes available? Erling Haaland is a freakish exception in a league almost devoid of proper goalscorers. The poacher is dead. Long live the wide man.
It says everything that another striker was not seen as a priority. Wilcox is not the only sporting director suffering in the post-Pep world, where No 9s are not only unfashionable but almost extinct. They are all the harder to come by for deeply unserious institutions, where the entire defence and most of the midfield ought to be up for sale.
The axe will of course fall onto Carrick before that. City are not the only Manchester club mulling relegation. It is the longest winless run for 38 years.
It cannot come to that and Eddie Howe or Antonio Conte, or perhaps another poor soul, will no doubt salvage the season in time.
Carrick has done what he can. He yielded to playing Amad on the right and Matheus Cunha on the left. The return of Fernandes was not just brazen populism, however well it went down with United’s support. It was the best option at No 10 in the absence of options and worked when he was pinging passes through the middle to Bryan Mbeumo.
Xabi Alonso, equally desperate to be loved, took the same gamble on Estevao. His disallowed goals let United off the hook, when it could have been much worse. Somehow, the difference between Chelsea’s forgotten man and Bruno is as stark as still and sparkling water. One fizzed, on both wings, through the middle, bamboozling a midfield that is no better without Youri Tielemans and Kobbie Mainoo. Carlos Baleba lost possession 12 times and did not win a single tackle.
There is nothing on the bench to change the tune. This is the world Carrick inhabits, which is why it will not be a popular sacking. He was given the job by virtue of his United DNA, a double-helix spanning his modesty and hard work and his history as a player. For a time it allowed United to run on good vibes. The vibes are now unmistakably bad. That makes the humiliation ritual to which he is being subjected even more cruel.
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Talk to anyone about England goalkeeper James Trafford and the soundbites are always the same.
“Awesome potential… laid-back character… how long before he’s England’s No 1?”
Well, three months into his Leeds United career and the club-record signing is proving money well spent. Daniel Farke’s side lie seventh and Trafford’s six goals conceded means only champions Arsenal have a better defensive record after eight games.
The imposing Cumbrian arrived from Manchester City in August for a fee that could rise to £45m, a new record for a British goalkeeper and a benchmark of Leeds’ ambition.
At 6ft 6in, Trafford is a giant of a man, albeit a fairly laconic one. But his self-assuredness, touch of arrogance perhaps, and natural talent are combining to solve what has been a problem position at Elland Road in recent years.
“It’s been a good start from James and he’s clearly someone who Leeds’ defenders have confidence in,” ex-Leeds and England goalkeeper Nigel Martyn tells The i Paper. “They know they have someone behind them who they can trust to do his job and make the saves he needs to make.
“You don’t see James shouting and bawling and that helps your team-mates to relax and rely on you. He’s very level-headed and I haven’t seen any mistakes from him yet. I’d maybe like him to clear the ball a bit quicker when he’s getting closed down, but he seems so laid-back and at ease with himself that it’s probably best to just let him get on with it.”
The 24-year-old has a save percentage this season of 83.3 per cent, the highest of any goalkeeper in the Premier League, and insiders say he has quickly settled in West Yorkshire.
Trafford lives close to Leeds’ training ground near Wetherby – handy for his frequent trips back home to the family farm near Cockermouth – and has struck up a bromance with team-mate and fellow goalkeeping union member Alex Cairns.
Family matters to Trafford as Martyn, who now represents England Over 60s at cricket, explains: “I met James and his parents at Elland Road when he signed here in the summer. You could see what a tight-knit family they are and that’s clearly very important to him.”
Former Leeds manager Simon Grayson believes Trafford’s character has boosted the form of his fellow summer arrivals, too.
“When I speak to people around the club, they say Trafford just loves being at Leeds United and is a good personality in the dressing room,” he told The i Paper. “Tarik Muharemovic and Nico Elvedi also joined this summer and have thrived playing in front of him in Leeds’ defence.
Trafford penned a five-year deal this summer (Photo: Getty)
“Elvedi has been great and Muharemovic looks an unbelievable player, so those relationships can go a long way towards making a season successful.”
Trafford’s career stalled after he returned to Manchester City from Burnley in July 2025, only for Gianluigi Donnarumma to arrive and take the No 1 spot weeks later. He played his part in City’s successes in lifting the Carabao and FA Cup last term, but he needed regular first-team football.
Moving to Leeds, upwardly mobile again, was too good to turn down and Farke reveals: “I was desperate to sign James, and not just this summer. I tried before because I was fully convinced of his qualities as a goalkeeper and a human being.
“You need this mentality because there’s big pressure and big competition when you play for a big club like Leeds. He’s relaxed and it helps as a goalkeeper if you have a bit of natural arrogance in a positive way. Natural self-confidence is perhaps a better word to describe it, and this is what James says.
“With his aura, and body language, you could feel that he knows this, and he’s bloody good! I didn’t have to persuade him to come here, I just spoke about what we want to do, and I got the feeling he was quickly sold. In James’ first few months with us, he’s shown that he can handle the pressure and expectations from Leeds supporters. That’s why they love him already.”
During the recent four-game block of Nations League matches, Thomas Tuchel gave Trafford and Everton’s Jordan Pickford two games apiece. It was recognition of Trafford’s fine start at Leeds and raised the prospect of him usurping Pickford as England’s No 1.
Trafford has four England caps compared to Pickford’s 93 but the battle between them looks set to intensify.
Martyn played 23 times for England but often played second fiddle to Arsenal legend David Seaman. “Tuchel giving them two games each recently was interesting because I know myself how difficult it can be with just 45 minutes here or a friendly there,” he reasoned.
“I probably had a game or two when Dave was injured and did okay, but I always knew he was going to come back in.
“I always thought my job was to put him under pressure with my performances in the Premier League every week… but then David kept playing well unfortunately! What James has to do, though, is to keep performing for Leeds and take any opportunities with England.
“That would put pressure on Jordan, who’s still playing very well and moving to an age where he’s probably going to be his most consistent and my early thirties were certainly my peak time. Jordan will probably stay as No 1 for now and I know James won’t want to hear that – but he’s clearly on a very good path at Leeds so long may it continue.”
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Jack Grealish could become an icon at Everton. But right now he is in the doghouse.
Axed from the team that beat Newcastle 3-1 to reach the Carabao Cup quarter-finals on Thursday night, he appears to owe manager David Moyes an apology.
Moyes would not be drawn after the match on exactly what Grealish had done, but it is understood to relate to a breach of club discipline over an unauthorised absence from training. The problem is, it is not the first time the club have had reasons to be concerned about the former England winger’s behaviour.
The good side of his nature was on full display at the Pride of Britain Awards last week when he presented an award to a young boy who had saved his mother’s life after she passed out behind the wheel of her car.
But it’s no secret that Grealish also likes to party, and just a few days after that swanky bash at Grosvenor House in London, he missed Everton’s defeat at Arsenal through illness. It was after another defeat to Arsenal last December that Grealish made headlines for the wrong reasons when he treated pals to a night out in London that ended in a strip club at 4am.
He missed Everton’s next game, at Burnley the day after Boxing Day, again through illness. A phenomenally talented player, Grealish should be making his headlines on the pitch, but throughout his career he has made them off it, being pictured worse for wear multiple times on nights out.
"I support the decision, but it's a club decision"
David Moyes has backed Everton’s decision to leave Jack Grealish out of the squad for their Carabao Cup win over Newcastle United, following a breach of club discipline. pic.twitter.com/LcJBiaxPp3
Moyes would not be drawn on whether the 31-year-old would return for Everton’s Premier League game at Newcastle on Monday, saying: “I wouldn’t give any team news away.” But with such a small squad already at his disposal, he has a right to feel let down.
Grealish was electric on loan for Everton last season and quickly became a fan favourite as he resurrected a career that had gone stale at Manchester City. He was one of the Premier League’s leading providers of assists with six in 20 games before he suffered a stress fracture in his foot in January that ruled him out for the rest of the season.
Only 17 players ended the season with more, and James Garner was the only Everton player to do so. But since returning for another loan spell at Bramley-Moore Dock, Grealish does not have an assist or a goal to his name in his eight appearances for the club.
He is in the final year of his £300,000-a-week contract at City and was described as having “fallen in love with the right shade of blue” by Everton CEO Angus Kinnear before the Toffees sealed a deal to bring him back to Merseyside.
But his future is far from settled, and the doubts will only grow if the disciplinary issues continue. Moyes takes obvious pride in running a tight ship at Everton and praised his players for not letting Grealish’s absence distract them on Thursday night.
“The one thing about Everton is that it has got good values behind it,” he said, after beating Newcastle. “All the players stand up to the values on the pitch and off the pitch. The players did a brilliant job tonight. We are limited in some areas but we are doing our best to keep challenging.”
If Everton are to continue to do so, they are going to need the Grealish who sparkled and shone last season, who won hearts and minds and reminded everyone that form is temporary but class is permanent. It’s time to let his football do the talking.
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