Jack Grealish urged to 'come to West Ham' as Carlton Cole prays for Man City exit

Manchester City’s £100 million millstone Jack Grealish, in many ways, feels like a modern day interpretation of a post-West Ham United Joe Cole.

A maverick forced to sacrifice his mercurial tendencies in order to fit into the rigid demands of the top level. A free-wheeling, flower child footballer who gave up his renegade brilliance to suit the suits.

Suggestions that the glowering disciplinarian of Jose Mourinho destroyed Joe Cole’s partyboy approach to the beautiful game have always been somewhat overblown.

The man who brought a little essence of ‘Jogo Bonito’ to the England national team played nearly 300 Chelsea games, won seven trophies, and scored a respectable 39 goals, after all.

Yet, those who felt Joe Cole would become the noughties’ answer to Paul Gascoigne were left wondering what the Paddington playmaker could have become had he rebuffed Mourinho’s advances in favour of staying at West Ham United.

Two decades later, no conversation about Jack Grealish’s Manchester City struggles is ever complete without sorrowfully mourning the footballer who united neutrals up and down the Premier League with his swashbuckling radiance in the claret and blue of Aston Villa.

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Carlton Cole urges Jack Grealish to leave Manchester City for West Ham United

In what felt like the most damning development yet, Jack Grealish was omitted by Pep Guardiola from Man City’s Club World Cup squad this month.

The second-most expensive footballer in British history – behind only former West Ham captain Declan Rice – clearly has no future at the Etihad Stadium. Though where he goes from here, a £100 million man with a £300,000-a-week contract, is anybody’s guess.

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Former Hammer Carlton Cole, though, is not the first to suggest that West Ham should look to rescue Grealish from his Manchester malaise.

Ex-Liverpool striker Stan Collymore wonders if Graham Potter is the ideal manager to get Jack Grealish playing again like only Jack Grealish can.

And Cole, while feeling that the 2023 Treble winner may be a candidate to join Kevin de Bruyne, Scott McTominay and Billy Gilmour at Serie A champions Napoli, cannot help but dream of seeing Grealish strut his stuff in a claret and blue kit once again.

“He’s got to go and play, man! He’s not in the Club World Cup squad, so that’s a big sign. It’s been told to him [that he has no future at Man City]. It’s been done,” Cole tells talkSPORT.

“Spain? Italy? We’ve seen players go to Italy and thrive. You look at someone like Napoli. [But] I just think he’s a bit of a homeboy.

“Come to West Ham, mate! Yeah, we’ll have him.”

Cole thinks West Ham more likely than Eddie Howe’s Newcastle

It was put to Cole that Newcastle United could come calling.

A man who scored 68 times in a decade as a West Ham centre-forward certainly cannot envisage Eddie Howe’s ferociously well-drilled Newcastle outfit coming to Grealish’s rescue, however. In a team of high-pressing work-horses, Grealish would look as out-of-place there as he does at City.

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“[Newcastle] they’ve got Anthony Gordon. I can’t see it. You see, with Jack Grealish, the way I’ve seen him play football, he needs a team geared up to him,” Cole adds. “You’ve got to have freedom on the pitch, and there are not many teams who play that style these days.

“At Villa, he had a free reign. He could do what he wanted. The way football has gone now, and how it’s structured, he had to shave off a bit of his game to suit Man City’s style and he became a percentage player. Winning fouls. Getting free-kicks. He’s better than that but that’s what he was reduced to.

“I want him to be free again. He’s a maverick! He gets bums of seats, he’s a nice cute player so I’d like to see him get back to that. But maybe the Premier League doesn’t suit him anymore. He’s the last of that generation, where he is allowed to express himself.

“I think he might have to go to a league where he can be himself again.”

The potential departures of Lucas Paqueta and Mohammed Kudus certainly open West Ham up to a new attacking midfielder.

Hammers legend Stuart Pearce is hoping to see Harvey Elliott leave Liverpool, meanwhile, for a new challenge at the London Stadium.

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