Sources: Man City chiefs admit to £210m Jack Grealish blunder – believe they should have signed Harry Kane instead
Man City chiefs privately admit they made a blunder signing Jack Grealish for a British-record fee – and should have landed Harry Kane instead.
A City source has told Football Insider that the club top brass now believe the team would have been better off with Kane as the spearhead rather than Grealish.
The Premier League champions tried to sign both of the England stars last summer and announced the capture of the attacking midfielder from Aston Villa for £100million on a six-year deal.
City continued to push for Kane after completing the Grealish deal on 5 August but Tottenham knocked back a £125m bid before the pursuit was abandoned.
The source explained that Pep Guardiola and his staff are in no doubt about Grealish’s talent but he has struggled to fit into their style of play.
At Villa the team was set up to maximise his dribbling ability on the left flank and relied upon him for creativity and cutting edge.
At City, Grealish is one of many outstanding players and has struggled to adapt to Guardiola’s one and two-touch style where it is all about receiving the ball and moving it on quickly to a teammate.
There is a feeling that the club would have been better off bidding higher for Kane last summer and driving that deal over the finish line instead.
The outlay of the Grealish did is jawdropping, with the £100m fee topped up by a £350,000-a-week salary over six years and costing around £210m in total.
Interestingly, City did not return for the Spurs star in January amid a sense that the deal is no longer a priority as they look to other centre-forward targets for the summer.
Neither of the two attacking stars have had especially effective seasons after the drama of last August.
Grealish has scored just three goals and assisted three more from 23 matches in all competitions.
Most of Kane’s 13 goals from 30 games have come in the lesser competitions and his Premier League strike rate of five goals and two assists from 19 matches is well down on previous years.
In other news, Man City in advanced talks to agree deal with sensation rated as good as Phil Foden.