Grealish knuckled down after he and team-mate Phil Foden were warned about their conduct by Guardiola having been pictured on a night out in December 2021.
He had a hamstring injury in the 2023-24 campaign and made just 10 starts in all, often overlooked for the quicker and more direct Jeremy Doku when he did regain full fitness.
He ended that season with more yellow cards (seven) than combined goals and assists (six) and featured in just 40% of the total minutes played by City.
Grealish has won 39 England caps but was left out of the Three Lions’ squad for the 2024 European Championship, where they were edged out in the final by Spain.
Several people close to the player had told BBC Sport its impact on him should not be underestimated and it had made a “real difference to his confidence”.
That appeared to be the case, because it did not get any better last term.
There was a further warning from Guardiola, who said in January: “Do I want the Jack that won the Treble? Yeah I want it, but I try to be honest with myself for that. They have to fight.”
In fact, his involvement with the side for last season dropped to 30%, while 16 starts in total is his fewest in a campaign since he was 20 years old – and as a result, unsurprisingly it was his least productive season since 2019.
Former England winger Theo Walcott has suggested Grealish’s “incredible talent” had been “coached out of him”, but others close to the player disagreed that the manager had in some way drilled the creativity out of him.
Grealish’s days were clearly numbered when he was excluded from City’s final game of the season at Fulham, despite Guardiola giving an impassioned defence afterwards by saying his large squad means he has to leave out “five or six players” and that it was “nothing personal with Jack”.
But he was also dropped from City’s squad for the Club World Cup in the United States in the summer, instead working individually at the training ground in Manchester.
During an open training session on 5 August, Grealish was fully engaged in the tactical sequences and did not give off any vibes of a player that wanted to leave.
There has been no public falling out between Grealish and Guardiola, but after the disappointments of the last two seasons, the chance to drag his career back on track with the Toffees is surely one he will relish.
