Jack Grealish hints at losing love for football whilst at Manchester City | OneFootball

Manchester City saw Jack Grealish lose love for football at times over recent years, the now-Everton loanee has admitted over the weekend.

Grealish has joined Everton on loan for the 2025-26 campaign to stake a claim in England’s 2026 FIFA World Cup squad, having made just seven Premier League starts for Manchester City in the recent campaign.

The 29-year-old joined Manchester City for a club-record £100 million in 2021, playing a starring role in the club’s historic 2022-23 treble season. However, Grealish has struggled for consistency in his last two seasons at the Etihad Stadium.

England boss Thomas Tuchel has made it clear that Grealish needs to play week-in, week-out for his club if he wants a look-in for his country, making a sensational start to life at Everton at the weekend as he grabbed both assists in the Toffees’ 2-0 win over Brighton at the weekend.

Everton retain an option to buy Grealish permanently for £50 million next summer, with the Merseyside club understood to be covering around three-fourths of Grealish’s weekly wages, which are believed to be in the region of £300,000-per-week.

David Moyes played a crucial role in luring Grealish to the Hill Dickinson Stadium, with Grealish revealing that he was often not the happiest when donning the Manchester City shirt in recent seasons.

Speaking in a post-match interview with beINSports, the former Aston Villa captain hinted at having lost an entire feeling of love for football whilst at Manchester City, and is now determined to find that feeling once again during his season-long loan spell at Everton.

“For me, I wanted to come here and the main thing was to enjoy football, enjoy playing every day. And maybe at times in the last couple of years I didn’t enjoy football as much as I should – my family said it to me at times when I was at home,” Grealish said.

Grealish was in and out of Guardiola’s preferred starting XI since the treble season and though he remained a popular figure in the Manchester City dressing room and behind the scenes at the Etihad Stadium, the maverick who joined the Blues from his boyhood club was no longer enjoying the beautiful game.

“So that’s down to no one, it’s down to myself,” Grealish added. “But yeah, I absolutely love football and I want to have that feeling again; when you wake up on a matchday and you just can’t wait to get out there.”

“And that’s how I felt today (against Brighton), and hopefully my performance showed that.”

Grealish went through a difficult time when former England boss Gareth Southgate looked past him for England’s 2024 European Championship squad, with a route into his nation’s 2026 World Cup squad believed to be a key driving factor for the move to Everton.