Jack Grealish needs to stay at Aston Villa this summer.

The headlines are screaming his name with regularity and it seems a foregone conclusion that he will depart for pastures new.

A move to Manchester United seems to be in the offing for £70m, the vultures circling to pick up the scraps of what could well be Villa’s relegation to the Championship.

And it would be a crying shame.

We see it all too regularly, though. Players routinely seem to bin off their childhood clubs to chase the gravy train that can come with playing in the top four.

Think of Ross Barkley leaving Everton behind to go to Chelsea, Kieran Tierney turning his back on Celtic to move to Arsenal, and Adam Lallana bidding farewell to Southampton to join Liverpool.

It happens with such regularity that it is no longer a surprise and there is no longer the pull of club loyalty to rely on when a big club comes knocking.

And yet Grealish ought to buck the trend.

He is adored at Villa Park and is also the club captain, raging against the dying of the light as Villa battle relegation. He has scored seven goals and registered six assists this season and is perhaps one of the best players in his position in the Premier League.

England recognition is surely on its way, too.

He has become a star at Villa and there is an opportunity for him to become an outright legend.

Should Villa stay up, it will be down to the talent Grealish possesses, and the knack he has of turning games on their head in an instant.

Did he really play for us?! No Villa fan has managed to name all of these obscure Villans....

There aren’t many players in European football who can do that, but the 24-year-old is one of them.

Add into the pot the fact that United actually signed Bruno Fernandes in the January transfer window, a player who occupies the playmaking role for them at this point in time, and one has to wonder if it makes logical sense for Grealish to move to Old Trafford.

More than anything, though, he has the opportunity to buck the trend, to show his loyalty, and become a bona fide Villa legend, at the club where he grew up. It used to happen all the time; Matt Le Tissier is the shining example, spending his entire career at Southampton.

Grealish signed for Villa at the age of six, meaning he has spent the last 18 years at the club; this is not the time for him to leave.

Meanwhile, this Villa man remains criminally underrated!