Jack Grealish has explained why he did not agree with Gareth Southgate’s controversial call to cut him from the England squad for this summer’s European Championship.
The Manchester City winger has been restored to the England team by interim head coach Lee Carsley, starting both games last month.
Grealish told BBC Radio 5Live on Tuesday why he still believes that he should have been part of the 26-man squad for the Euros in Germany.
Grealish admitted that he was not at his best for Manchester City last season, but argued that he has an all-round game which is about more than just scoring goals. And that his experience at the top level — he has won three Premier Leagues and a treble — still should have counted in his favour.
“I’ll be honest with you, I didn’t really agree with it,” Grealish said at St George’s Park, when asked about Southgate’s decision not to take him.
“I felt like I didn’t have the best season. You look at some players, for example, in my position, even the likes of Phil Foden, Anthony Gordon, Jarrod Bowen, people like this, they scored a lot of goals, which 100 per cent I agree with.
“But I just know that my game is not just about goals. I think I give so much more to the team than just goals. And I think you need a bit of a balance in every position on the pitch, and I class myself as quite an experienced player now.
“I’ve played in quite a lot of big games, Champions League finals, FA Cup finals and I’ve won a lot of stuff now. You asked me do I think should I have gone, and I still think that I should have, but obviously it wasn’t meant to be.”
Grealish said that it was difficult to watch England at Euro 2024 after the disappointment of being left out.
“I’ll be honest it was difficult to just even watch the games,” he said. “At the end of the day everyone there is my close friends, and I obviously wanted them to do well. But also, you don’t want to miss out on winning the Euros. Unfortunately for the guys they didn’t manage to get over the last hurdle. But it was obviously really difficult to watch.”
Grealish was restored to the England team by Carsley last month and he started both games against Republic of Ireland and Finland in a number 10 position. Grealish was delighted to have returned to the fold.
“Since he’s been given the job he’s been brilliant,” Grealish said. “I can’t speak highly enough of him. The training sessions that we’ve had and the way he gets it across to us of how he wants us to play and how he wants me to play personally.
He added: “When you’ve heard the way that younger lads that were with him at the Under-21s spoke about him, you know he was like a father figure.”
Now that Phil Foden, Cole Palmer and Jude Bellingham are back in the squad Grealish will have more competition for the number 10 role. Grealish joked that Carsley would have sleepless nights trying to pick his first team, even more than Grealish himself would have after the birth of his first daughter last week: “I think he’ll have a lot more [sleepless nights] I reckon with the players that he’s got to pick from!”
(Carl Recine/Getty Images)
