That doesn’t mean Pep coached the personality out of him
In addition to not being the player some may have thought he could be (myself included) maybe he also doesn’t have the requisite mentality to thrive in a big pond
The transfer of Grealish is an example of the corruption of Man City.
They are just a mid table club with average support yet can afford to spend 100m on a player when any other similar sized club wouldn’t be able to afford him?
But to make it worse, Man City just write off transfers like this and replace them with another top quality player.
Perhaps. Mahrez transformed into an entirely new level under Pep. Don’t think that’s the case for Grealish think he’s much more hesitant to take his man on and obviously doesn’t have the free role he did at Villa.
Thinking move has been good for his trophy cabinet but not so good on how he’s played over the last few years.
He’s a good PL player but we need to stop buying anything that isn’t level raising. This back up stuff never works out… only way to push forward is to buy real competition in most outfield spaces. Likes of Havertz, Merino, Martinelli, Jesus, Trossard, Calafiori work out as good bench options for that reason. It’s why the Madueke signing just seems like a massive waste of time and limited resources.
I get your point to upgrade our players, but keep in mind that, most names you mentioned, were starters on their previous teams and could be starter on most teams.
They are not bench/squad players.
They will not accept to be bench players and the club cannot afford (most) them to be squad players.
But then they can actually command some level of fee when we sell them on and we can replace them with other actual competitive signings. Having players that haven’t broken in but actually could is a much better situation to be in than signing second rate players that you know are not good enough that will also for sure be hard to shift in around 2 years.