David Moyes left Jack Grealish out of Everton's Carabao Cup win over Newcastle United on Thursday, and when he was asked why, he said the words "a breach of club discipline" and then said very little else. Everton won 3-1 at the Hill Dickinson Stadium without him. The club has not spelled out what the breach was.
Moyes says the decision came from above him
"You probably know I'm not going to give any details," Moyes told reporters afterwards. "It's a club decision, it's something I don't want to speak too much about." He made clear he was behind it. The absence is understood to have come from an unauthorised absence from training, and Grealish is expected to be fined.
The 31-year-old missed last Saturday's 2-0 defeat at Arsenal with illness, and according to reports he then missed training on Monday without permission. He has since been back at Finch Farm. Asked whether Grealish would be available for Monday's Premier League trip to Newcastle, Moyes said he would not give any team news away, which tells you roughly nothing and is probably the point.
A relationship that looked very different a year ago
This is a strange turn for a player the club embraced. Grealish spent a large chunk of last season at Everton on a similar loan arrangement, scored twice and set up six more in 20 appearances, and took the Premier League's player-of-the-month award for August before a foot injury ended his campaign in January. Moyes spoke openly about how much he was loved around the place.
Chief executive Angus Kinnear put it to BBC Radio Merseyside in August like this: "He is a player who has fallen in love with the right shade of blue, but ultimately he is a City player and we have to respect that." Kinnear added that the supporters and the team had treated Grealish as one of their own, and that it gave the club a platform for a longer-term conversation. That conversation now looks a lot harder.
What happens next
Grealish is in the final year of his reported £300,000-a-week contract at Manchester City, the club that paid £100m for him in 2021 and then watched Pep Guardiola discard him. He came back to City in the summer, appeared off the bench in the 3-0 Community Shield defeat by Arsenal and again in the 2-1 win over Bournemouth, then rejoined Everton before the window shut. Five Premier League appearances have followed, plus the EFL Cup third-round win over Wolves.
Moyes has a thin squad after a disappointing summer and needs his senior players, which makes the timing awkward for everyone. He preferred to talk about the ones who did play. "The one thing about Everton is that it has got good values behind it," he said. "All the players stand up to the values on pitch and off the pitch. The players did a brilliant job tonight. We are limited in some areas but we are doing our best to keep challenging." Our view is that one fine and a quiet week fixes this; a second incident would not.
Player and club context: Grealish, 31, is on loan at Everton from Manchester City and has 39 England caps with four goals, last playing for England in a 3-1 Nations League win in Finland in 2024. Everton beat Newcastle 3-1 to set up a Carabao Cup quarter-final at League Two Fleetwood Town, and have not won a major trophy since 1995. The club gave no further detail on the breach.
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