John Giles joined Nathan Murphy on The Football Show to discuss Manchester City and Jack Grealish.
Manchester City beat West Ham in their first Premier League game.
Erling Haaland scored twice and his link-up play was particularly impressive. Kevin De Bruyne showed his class and Haaland capitalized on it for his second goal. That was a particularly intimidating clip for the rest of the Premier League.
If Haaland and De Bruyne click immediately, then there might not be anyone who can even stay close to Manchester City. Regardless of what Jack Grealish, Phil Foden or Riyad Mahrez manage between them.
But John Giles isn't so optimistic. The former Ireland international believes that Manchester City were unimpressive against West Ham. The away win and the scoreline weren't enough to cover the flaws in their performance, so Giles thinks big changes are needed.
"They won well against West Ham," Giles said.
"But West Ham had a few injuries. To be honest I wasn't impressed with City at the weekend. Now, people were making a big deal of the possession and the passes. They had 831 passes...and they scored two goals. If you're making that many passes, you should be scoring more goals from them."
Manchester City won the league playing in that style last year, but Giles worries about how City will fair against the better teams in the league this year. Pep Guardiola is not going to change and Giles likely knows that, but philosophically it won't convince him.
Giles singled out one player in particular as the primary problem: Jack Grealish.
"They play it to Grealish, it's good passing and it gets to Grealish. Nine times out of 10, Grealish pulls out of it. He passes it back and they finish up back at the halfway line again. That's why there was so many passes.
"You've got to insist that he takes the fullback on...It's no good pulling out of it and starting all over again.
"You've got to take him on and create goals and chances from that position."
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