This week's Royal Blue column tackles the issue of what Everton do now with Jack Grealish

It seems clear that Everton need more ‘Jack in the box,’ and less ‘Jack the lad.’

England’s first £100million player should now let his football do the talking again because that’s where he’s most gifted.

Grealish hasn’t just let David Moyes down. He hasn’t just let his team-mates down.

He’s let down some fifty thousand Evertonians who regularly pack Hill Dickinson Stadium to the rafters to ensure the Blues are attracting the biggest regular crowds in their history despite ironically enduring their longest ever silverware drought that dates back to four months before Grealish was born.

Although that last success – readers of this column won’t need this correspondent to remind them it was the 1995 FA Cup of course – was a major shock at the time as Joe Royle’s ‘Dogs of War’ defeated Alex Ferguson’s charges who would complete domestic doubles both the year before and after, as incredible as it now might seem, Everton had lifted as many League Championships as Manchester United back then, having actually gone into the Premier League era some two ahead of the Red Devils.

But, despite United and Liverpool being the only rivals able to top the Blues’ feat of longevity, securing major honours across nine separate decades, a generation on, Everton still haven’t had cause to open their trophy cabinet again. So, having never triumphed in the League Cup in any of its various guises that have included a plethora of different beverages plus other sponsorship deals with US bank Capital One plus now defunct companies Littlewoods – founded in Liverpool by former Blues chairman John Moore – and Rumbelows, success-starved supporters will clutch at any straw they can grasp.

With this week’s fourth round tie taking place after the quarter-finals draw had taken place, both Moyes’ men and Matthias Jaissle’s Newcastle United – who did win the competition for the first time in 2025 – had an enormous fillip to get through the tie as League Two Fleetwood Town awaited in the last eight. While the Cod Army enjoyed arguably the greatest night in their history as they stunned Premier League champions Arsenal, managed by former Goodison Park icon Mikel Arteta, on penalties, the opportunity of having just a fourth tier opponent between you and a semi-final is a rare luxury for any top flight side.

That fact alone should have been enough of an incentive to top any team talk that Moyes or indeed any manager could have delivered to his players. Yet one of his players, a senior pro and a star man, took his eye off the ball.

The Glaswegian gaffer is a long-timer admirer of Grealish’s skills. Moyes once declared that the Brummie ace was “probably the best player in the league right now.”

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But that was in 2021 when he was still turning out for boyhood club Aston Villa and on the cusp of his landmark nine-figure move to the Etihad Stadium. Fast forward to the summer of 2025 when the Blues came calling and despite having played a pivotal role in Manchester City’s 2023 treble, Grealish found himself surplus to requirements under Pep Guardiola having been left out of the squad for the FIFA Club World Cup.

With the all-conquering Catalan coach having told the England international in no uncertain terms to find himself a new club if he wanted some playing time again, Moyes is understood to have taken Grealish out to dinner to outline his vision of making him the marquee signing as Everton made their historic move from Goodison Park to Hill Dickinson Stadium. In turn, Grealish hit the ground running and after four assists in his first two starts, was named Premier League Player of the Month for the first time in his career in the week of his 30th birthday.

Another landmark moment followed as the attacking midfielder netted the first stoppage time winner at the Blues’ new home on the Mersey waterfront to seal a 2-1 comeback victory over Crystal Palace a year ago this month. When Grealish struck again on December 2 to secure Everton’s first ever Premier League success at Bournemouth, he celebrated arm in arm on the pitch after the final whistle with Moyes.

He went as far as proclaiming: “I love the manager to pieces,” a gushing remark that had the Scot on the back foot as he admitted: “I don’t know if I like that because players used to not like me!”

The mutual affection between Everton, Moyes and Grealish – who bought a box at Hill Dickinson Stadium at the start of last season on a multi-year deal – continued though and despite a nasty stress fracture injury to his left foot, picked up at old stamping ground Villa Park, keeping him out for most of the second half of the 2025/26 campaign, he stayed on at Finch Farm during his rehabilitation process.

While doubts over Grealish’s match fitness persisted, the Blues came back in for him on September 1 (transfer deadline day) as Moyes gave him a second chance. This week’s misdemeanour seems a long way off from being the end of Grealish’s Everton career – unlike when the same manager curtailed Brazilian Jo’s loan spell to send him back to the Etihad Stadium after an unauthorised Christmas return to his homeland – after all, beggars can’t be choosers when you’ve only got 18 outfield players, it could prove to be a watershed moment when it comes to trust.

The fact is that the Blues didn’t end up missing Grealish at all and without the 31-year-old, whose bumper contract at Manchester City expires at the end of this season, they promptly produced their best display of the season so far. Ironically, we saw the other side of Grealish’s nature earlier the same day as it was reported how an individual who is known for his acts of kindness and generosity, both fiscally and in terms of the time he devotes to those less fortunate than himself, had made a £10,000 donation to an Evertonian father of three from Southport who is fighting an aggressive stage four kidney cancer.

Those same supporters who took Grealish to their hearts will no doubt back him again the next time he pulls on a royal blue jersey. But he now needs to start repaying their faith as time is no longer on his side and he won’t want his career in the big time to fizzle out.