Jack Grealish told Pep Guardiola isn't to blame for Man City decline amid Everton loanee's fantastic start to new season

Following his loan switch from City to Everton, Grealish has excelled under David Moyes, bagging four assists in six games. The 30-year-old is taking on and beating defenders with apparent ease, something that became a distant memory at City. But Nevin feels that manager Guardiola should not be raked over the coals for how he used the winger at City.

He told BetIdeas.com: "It is frustrating but certain clubs and the way they play aren't suited to certain players. Everyone seems to think it's just Pep didn't let him drive past players - no. Doku was allowed to drive past players. He wasn't saying ‘Jack you can't and Doku you can’. So there's something else going on there and one of the things that's going on is space behind. If you play for Manchester City you come up against these massive blocks of players all the time. In the last third you may get a lot of the ball but you're just a blocker then, two or three in front of you and if you lose the ball they don't like that. If you're playing at Everton, home or away, you're not kind of coming across that all the time. You find yourself quite often one on one with a defender. That almost never happened to Jack when he was at Man City. So he's given the freedom of space. It was up to him to see if he could react to it. And he's reacted to it brilliantly. Absolutely fantastically. It's the simplest thing of, ‘Get the ball in the last third, go and beat somebody, and if you don't, we don't mind’. The fans will accept that. Now that the manager accepts that, then this is all good for Jack. And you see in his face, he's beaming. He's smiled more in the last month than I've seen in the last year. That tells you a story."

Grealish himself admitted he "didn't enjoy football as much" towards the tail end of his time at City, but is loving life with Everton right now. The England international struggled for game time and became less and less effective at the Premier League outfit. But at this rate, he could be in with a shot of getting an England recall for the 2026 World Cup.

The former Villa man will hope to bag his first goal for Everton when they travel to Premier League basement side Wolves in the Carabao Cup on Tuesday, before returning to league action on Monday at home to struggling West Ham.