Jack Grealish posts hopeful message upon Man City pre-season return as Enzo Maresca assessment begins | OneFootball

Manchester City winger Jack Grealish has posted an upbeat message on Instagram as he returned to the club for pre-season under newly-appointed manager Enzo Maresca, signalling his determination to overcome a stress fracture that cut short his season-long loan spell at Everton in January.

Grealish, 30, had joined Everton on a season-long loan last summer in search of the consistent first-team minutes that had proved so elusive during his time as a Manchester City player under Pep Guardiola, only for the move to be disrupted by a stress fracture sustained in January that brought his involvement at Goodison Park to a premature end.

The injury represented the latest in a series of physical setbacks that have punctuated Grealish’s time at the Etihad Stadium since his £100 million arrival from Aston Villa in the summer of 2021, with the winger’s struggle to maintain fitness and consistency over an extended period a recurring and painful theme across his five years with the club.

He now returns to Manchester City with his future at the club among the most compelling and delicately poised questions of the summer, entering what is understood to be the final year of his contract and facing conversations with new boss Enzo Maresca that will help determine the next chapter of a career that remains capable of delivering at the very highest level when his body allows.

Grealish: “Hopefully not long now till back training for good”

Posting to his official Instagram account, Grealish wrote: “Nice to see everyone, am nearly there!” wrote Grealish. “Hopefully not long now till back training for good.”

The phrasing of “am nearly there” suggests that while Grealish has returned to the club’s facilities and is physically present in the pre-season environment, a full return to unrestricted group training is still some way off as he manages the tail end of his recovery from the stress fracture he sustained at Everton in January.

That caveat aside, the tone of the message is resolutely positive, and the reference to seeing “everyone” – implying teammates, staff and those around Maresca’s new setup at the Etihad Stadium – suggests a player who has returned in good spirits and with a genuine appetite to be part of whatever the Italian is building in his first season in charge.

The message was accompanied by a warm public response from supporters and colleagues alike, with Grealish’s candour about his physical condition a reminder of the openness and personality that have made him one of the more compelling and genuinely liked figures in English football throughout his career at the highest level.

What does Grealish’s return mean for his Man City future?

The backdrop to Grealish’s pre-season return is one of considerable uncertainty but also, by several accounts, genuine optimism – with those close to the situation understood to believe that there is a route back for the England international under Maresca at the Etihad Stadium, should his fitness allow him to demonstrate the qualities that persuaded Manchester City to break the British transfer record to sign him five years ago.

Director of football Hugo Viana and Maresca are in the process of rebuilding a squad that has undergone significant change this summer, and the question of whether Grealish forms part of that rebuilt group – or whether the final year of his contract represents the closing chapter of his time at the club – is one that his conversations with Maresca in the coming weeks will go a considerable way toward answering.

The fact that those conversations have not yet resulted in a departure, combined with the understood belief in a possible route back, suggests that no decision has been taken prematurely – and that Maresca is prepared to make his judgement on Grealish based on what he sees on the training pitch rather than on the narrative that has built up around the winger during a difficult few years.

For Grealish himself, the opportunity to work under a new manager and to make a fresh impression is one that few players in his position at a club of this stature are afforded, and his Instagram message – brief, warm and characteristically human – suggests a player who has returned to the Etihad Stadium with a clear-eyed understanding of where he stands and an uncomplicated determination to do everything he can to get back onto the pitch.