From 'rest station' to icon: Inside Jack Grealish's career rebirth at Everton after miserable final Man City season

When Grealish was looking for a new club in the summer, he had various conversations with David Moyes. The Scot, who has been a Premier League coach for more than two decades, knew exactly how to push Grealish's buttons. Moyes saw a player who had fallen in the estimation of football fans, just as he had done after his nightmarish 10-month spell managing Manchester United immediately after Sir Alex Ferguson's departure. 

And just as Moyes emerged from that harrowing time at Old Trafford to win a European trophy with West Ham and oversee an incredible resurgence at Everton, who were in danger of relegation when he returned at the start of 2025, he believed Grealish could turn it around.

"The knowledge that he thinks he’s got a little bit to prove and to stand up," Moyes explained after signing Grealish on loan on the eve of the new season. "I’ve had to do that myself. I’ve had to come back from being knocked down. Sometimes you have to have that resilience to bounce back, to fight back and to show everybody. I just sense Jack is carrying that with him now. I hope it shows through this season because, if it does, then we’ll get a lot of good things from Jack."

It did not take long for Everton to get the best out of Grealish. In his first start for the club, he inspired them to a 2-0 win over Brighton in their first-ever competitive game at the brand new Hill Dickinson Stadium, setting up both goals. In that full debut, Grealish equalled the number of goals he had contributed to in his final season with City.

In his next game at Wolves, Grealish provided two more assists in a 3-2 win. No player created more Premier League goals in August, and Grealish was deservedly named the English top-flight's Player of the Month. Just over a month on, Grealish snatched victory over previously unbeaten Crystal Palace by scoring in added time to seal a 2-1 win. It was his first goal for the Toffees, and it was a scrappy one at that, but it also spoke of his desire as he blocked an attempted clearance from Daniel Munoz in the six-yard box to divert the ball in. Grealish had been urging himself to score a late goal in Everton's previous two games, and it proved to be third time lucky.

"It was an unbelievable feeling," he said. "Do you know what’s mad? In the last few games when we’ve been here, we’ve been drawing and I keep saying to myself in the 85th minute: ‘Come on Jack, imagine if you scored now’. I did it against Villa and West Ham and didn’t score, so today I said the same thing again and scored."

Grealish also dedicated his goal to "all the Evertonians who’ve made me so welcome". He added: "The way they've made me feel since I've come here when I see them, not even at the stadium but just around the place, it's so nice. There's no better feeling in life than to feel loved."

Moyes could see that Grealish needed more care and attention than he was getting at City under Guardiola. "He probably needs a bit of love and attention," he said after the Palace game. "He is making a big difference. Whether it is his assists, his presence, lots of things. So all credit to him. He is playing the minutes he may not have had in recent years. You know, he's so good. What Jack gives us is something just on the edge, which, hopefully it's on the edge of creativeness and maybe scoring goals.

"It's nothing to do with me, let me tell you - it's all to do with Jack and his own mentality to be better," Moyes added. "There's a wee bit to prove, I'm sure - I think we all have. I think in life, you've always got something you have to strive to do. And I think Jack wants to show that he's a good player. I think he's showing it at the moment."

And while the Everton boss hasn't tried to take credit for Grealish's revival, he is clearly doing something right. Grealish seems to fit at Everton much better than he did at City, precisely because he is the main man, just as he was at boyhood club Villa. Only Iliman Ndiaye can come close to him in the the Everton squad in terms of talent, but in terms of status, Grealish is by far and away the most famous player.  He is the centre of attention for fans and his shirt has proven to be the biggest selling one at the club shop.

Grealish has become a symbol of the club's spectacular new 52,000 capacity stadium which sits on the River Mersey. "It's incredible, it feels iconic," he said of the new arena. And he is its icon.

Despite his rock-star status, Grealish does not strut around like he owns the place. His attention to fans looking for photos and autographs has been noted, as indeed it was at City. But his work ethic is also being talked about in a way that it was not necessarily praised in Manchester.

"The thing I’ve noticed is that Jack’s one of the first in and one of the last out every day (at training)," midfielder Kieran Dewsbury-Hall told The Athletic. "He’s always doing the recovery, ice baths, massages, putting himself in the best possible position to perform. He’s kept himself in the right shape. Everyone knows Jack’s at his best when he’s got a smile on his face, playing confidently. He wants to play every week and show people what he’s about."

Carlos Alcaraz added: "What I have been really impressed about is that he has been a real warrior in training. We want that attitude. We are at a club where we are all in it together. He is a great guy. In the short time he has been here, he has chatted to everyone and tried to get to know everyone."

Grealish's return to form is not just pleasing to Everton fans and City supporters; anyone with even a passing interest in football has been unable to resist a smile while seeing him succeed again. Grealish's drifting at City was not enjoyable and the player has admitted that his love of the game faded the longer he stayed away from Guardiola's starting XI.

He told Sky Sports: "For me, I wanted to come here, and the main thing was to enjoy football, you know, enjoying playing every day. And I think maybe at times in the last couple of years, I’ve fallen out of love – not fallen out of love, but just didn’t enjoy football as much as I should. My family said to me at times when I was at home and stuff. That’s down to no one else; it’s down to myself. But yeah, I absolutely love football, and I want to have that feeling again, when you wake up on a match day and you just can’t wait to get out there."

Grealish opened up in more detail on his revival while speaking to his former Villa manager Tim Sherwood: "I'm at my best when I feel loved. You know I'm quite vulnerable off the pitch and I wanted to go somewhere to just feel the love again, and to just wake up and want to play with a smile on my face again. Obviously people have a perception of me, but there's nothing I love doing more than playing football. Whether that's on the training field, I just love playing football."

There was also some self-reflection on what went wrong at City: "People go, 'He likes to go out, he likes to party' - and I do. I want to be able to live my life as well and enjoy myself, but there's a time and a place to do that. I'll be honest with you, I probably haven't picked the right times - sometimes at City, for example, I didn't help myself at times, I'll openly say that - but then I don't think it was all down to that.

"People say to me, 'what happened at City?' But I had two good years there. The first year I was getting used to everything, going there for that amount of money, the pressure and just getting used to the way the manager wanted to play and the environment. The second year we won the treble and it was an unbelievable year. I loved it. The third year, I put that down to myself really and I feel like I didn't do certain things right in that year."

Grealish cannot change what happened at City, but he has plenty of his career to go despite having recently turned 30. He has an England place to fight for, and although Thomas Tuchel did not reward his return to form with a recall in his September or October squads, there are eight months until the World Cup and the players Grealish is competing with could get injured or their form could decline. He just needs to keep going and do what he has been doing. 

But even if he does not make the World Cup squad, Grealish feels like the footballer English fans fell in love with. He is at his best when he feels wanted and a responsibility to drive a team forward.

"I don't mean this in an arrogant way, but I do like it when managers say, 'You're the footballer, go and do what you want to do'," he said to Sherwood. "I'd rather someone just be like, 'When you get the ball Jack, just go and play.' That's what he [Moyes] says to me. Obviously you have your jobs, you have roles to do without the ball, but he says to me, 'When you get the ball just go and do what you want to do'."

Grealish is doing what he used to do once more. He is not the rest station anymore, he is the talisman - and that's just how he likes it.