Sign up NOW for our daily Villa newsletter direct to your inbox Subscribe Thank you for subscribing We have more newsletters Show me See our privacy notice Invalid Email

“For a 19-year-old who has never completed 90 minutes at senior level for Aston Villa, he was displaying a remarkable degree of composure. Young players often struggle to cope with the pace of the game, and here he was dictating it.

“Most teenagers have speed and energy and enthusiasm and an eagerness to do everything at top speed. Not many have the insight to delay a fraction of a second and do it at the right speed.”

That was a passage from an April 2015 piece by Irish football journalist, Ken Early, who’d witnessed the prodigious Jack Grealish saunter through an FA Cup semi-final to mass critical acclaim.

How times change. It must all seem like a lifetime ago.

Not just for Villa fans – what an incredible day it was – but for the player himself. Heady days of a proud dad refusing to take off your sweat-stained jersey, cup finals and a starring role in another fine episode of relegation escapology that McGyver would be proud of: even Jack must wonder how it’s all gone so wrong.

Tuesday night’s limp performance against Wycombe Wanderers at Villa Park is the latest in a fractured series of poor performances from Aston Villa’s star youngster.

Remi Garde, questioned about Grealish in the aftermath of the 2-0 victory, had offered the opinion that “he hadn’t seen what he wanted to see from Jack”. Those watching from the stands were also – for lack of a better phrase – underwhelmed.

There is a revisionism now underway among supporters about how good Grealish actually is and if he has been overhyped.

Maybe he has been overhyped. Maybe he isn’t as good as we all thought. Maybe you imagined that breathtakingly ballsy performance at Wembley in April. Maybe you forgot his sweet strike against Leicester City – a game in which he and Carles Gil terrorised the Foxes before Tim Sherwood happened. Maybe his second half appearance against Birmingham City earlier this season – 45 minutes of football in which he was head and shoulders above everyone else on the pitch - was a figment of your imagination.

The point is that, yes, Jack Grealish is not Lionel Messi incarnate, but neither is he Michael Johnson, Man City’s former tearaway. Not yet, anyway. He is still hugely talented with ability rarely seen in such a young player. He is also part of a squad that, for the most part, has been an abomination all season - hardly the setting for a young talent to thrive.

PICTURES - Jack Grealish's Villa career:

Grealish’s attitude this season has been worrying, though. There is a sense from his performances that he feels he has ‘made it’, and that he doesn’t have to try anymore. That’s dangerous ground to be treading for a 20-year-old footballer with so much attention on him.

If his attitude is worrying then his post-summer behaviour has been doubly troubling. Holiday images of him lying prostrate on the ground after one too many rock shandies and mid-season shenanigans are all unbecoming of a footballer with so much to gain, and yet so much to lose.

Things haven’t been easy for the Birmingham-born youngster, though. The sacking of Tim Sherwood – a manager who had acted as a professional father-figure to him since shunting him into the side – was not well received.

Sherwood was to Grealish what sugar is to a child. It’ll love the taste but in essence, it’s only good for it in very small doses. The former Spurs’ coach seemed to be able to harness the precocious talent within him, but the leash was too loose and discipline was lacking; both on and off the field.

(Image: Michael Regan/Getty Images)

If Sherwood was sugar, the incoming Remi Garde would be Jack’s green vegetables: the good stuff; the vital ingredients that turn a boy into a man. The sooner he realises this, the better.

Patience is wearing thin, though. Not just with the manager, but with the fan base. Grumbles are now becoming wails. “He’s overrated”. “He’s too big for his boots”. “Sell him”.

Those same supporters would do well to remember the other shining lights who Villa have moved on without giving due care and patience. Jordan Graham – before his terribly unfortunate injury – was tearing up the Championship for Wolves, with Spurs already linked with a move for the winger.

Daniel Johnson – despite never being given a chance – is now a mainstay in the centre of the park for a Preston side performing relatively well after promotion.

A loan might do the trick. Grealish’s confidence is on the floor right now and a relegation scrap probably isn’t the best place to nurture that. If he is of no use to Villa in this situation, send him to a Leeds or a Derby where he can rediscover his swagger.

We must remember just how much pressure weighs on the shoulder of a home-town boy who – with the right attitude – could be a king. He must not be cast out. Not yet. Not when his career is still in its infancy.

He’s one of your own. Support him during these difficult times and he may well repay your faith in spades.

LISTEN - Birmingham Mail Aston Villa podcast, January 20