BBC pundit and England Women’s manager Phil Neville has criticised Jack Grealish’s lack of end product in recent weeks for Aston Villa.
On Match of the Day (BBC1, 10:45, 16/07), Neville spent a long time talking about Grealish’s failure to inspire Villa to a win against Everton at Goodison Park.
Neville said: “He is the biggest influence on them. He hasn’t scored any in the last 13 games. The next level is now to produce match-winning performances – goals and assists. He had so many opportunities today.
“There were times in the game where you thought, this is his moment. Those stats there, those lack of goals, you can blame the strikers but that’s been his lack of final pass and assist. Look at Bruno Fernandes, David Silva… their consistency is fantastic.”
It was a slightly bizarre angle for Neville to take. The stat he flashed up showed that Grealish’s chance creation rate is only down 0.1 in the last 13 games.
If he’s calling for Grealish to produce assists more regularly, his dismissal of his Villa team-mates’ role in that doesn’t make much sense.
In actual fact, Grealish did provide a match-winning moment. His skill and cross gave Anwar El Ghazi the easiest finish he could wish to have – which would have made it 2-0 – but he skied it before Theo Walcott equalised.
Grealish can’t do anything about that, and presenter Mark Chapman made a good point when Neville made the comparison to Bruno Fernandes. How many assists would the Portuguese get in this Villa team?
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