In Focus: Lack of England goals not an issue for chief creator Grealish

At £100million, Jack Grealish is England’s most expensive player ever — but he has yet to score for his country.

The ever-entertaining playmaker is settling nicely into life with the champions, scoring a stunner on his Champions League debut against RB Leipzig.

Now Gareth Southgate has challenged Grealish to step up on the international stage as England prepare to face Andorra tonight  and Hungary on Tuesday in World Cup qualifying.

We examine how the former Aston Villa thriller can transfer his club form to the international scene.

England expects

Speaking after announcing his latest squad, Southgate addressed the fact Grealish has yet to score for the Three Lions.

He said: "I think the big challenge with us is he's 15 games without a goal, so the big challenge is to start registering those numbers that our other wide players have been able to produce over a period of time.

"There's no reason he can't do that.

"He’s physically definitely in a better place. He’s able to play the midweek games now.

"When we had him at the end of the [2020-21] season, he was only able to train two days in every three, a completely different situation to the European Championships, that’s for sure."

Euro star

While his relatively low number of minutes has prompted frustration among England fans in the recent past — notably at Euro 2020, where there was a clamour for Southgate to start him — Grealish has taken the opportunities afforded to him.

Only 12 minutes into his first tournament start, he crossed for Raheem Sterling to head home the only goal of the game against the Czech Republic.

Next time out he provided the assist for Harry Kane to seal a memorable last-16 victory over Germany.

His assist for Declan Rice in September’s 4-0 World Cup qualifying thrashing of Hungary made it three in five international appearances.

Even though he has not found the back of the net so far, Grealish is contributing at the sharp end — and he has always been more of a creator than scorer.

Playmaker in chief

Since the beginning of the 2020-21 season, Grealish has created 99 chances in the Premier League at a rate of 3.21 per 90 minutes — only Manchester United midfield wizard Bruno Fernandes has more (118).

In the first seven games of this season alone, Grealish ranks fifth for chances created with 18 at a rate of 2.76 per 90 — an impressive tally considering he is still getting to grips with a new system and a new team.

Southgate may want the 26-year-old to break his international duck, but it is not imperative considering his immense creative output.

He is by no means a prolific scorer in club football, bagging only seven Premier League goals this season and last.

Competition in attack

Grealish’s direct rival for a place in the England side is Arsenal’s Bukayo Saka — who scored one and set up another as the Three Lions swept Andorra aside 4-0 at Wembley last month.

His City team-mate Raheem Sterling can also operate from the left, as can United’s Jadon Sancho.

Grealish could benefit from the latter’s slow start to life at Old Trafford while Sterling has fallen out of favour at the Etihad.

Adding goals to his game will make it impossible for Southgate to overlook Grealish. 

Though he has ousted Sterling at club level, he would do well to take inspiration from his team-mate.

After netting just two goals in his first 46 games, Sterling has managed 16 in his last 24 caps.