A claim has emerged on Aston Villa and their chances of bringing Jack Grealish back to the Midlands in the January transfer window...

What's the talk?

Journalist Dean Jones has claimed that the attacking midfielder is unlikely to rejoin his boyhood club at the start of 2023 as other teams would be ahead of them in the race for his signature.

He told GIVEMESPORT: “If Grealish was put up for sale, I don’t think he’d be going back to Aston Villa. There are big clubs, I think, that would be interested in signing Jack Grealish, and I don’t think he would be looking to go back at this point.”

This comes after Football Insider reported that Manchester City are willing to cash in on the England international in order to fund a swoop for Borussia Dortmund midfielder Jude Bellingham, with football agent Haydn Dodge claiming that Villa could look to bring him back.

He could take them to Europe

Jones' claim is an unfortunate one for Villa as it suggests that there is not a great chance that the English attacker will end up at Villa Park next month, or at the end of the season.

Grealish coming back to the club, however, would undeniably be a huge boost to the club as he is a terrific footballer who could improve the squad and help the side to push up the table.

In fact, with Villa currently 12th in the Premier League and four points off the top six, it suggests that they could even join the race for a place in Europe if they are able to take the next step and string together a run of wins during the second half of the campaign.

Signing Grealish would certainly help them to take that leap as he is a proven performer at this level who has the quality to be a match-winner with his ability to score and create goals in the final third.

In the 2020/21 campaign, the winger scored six goals and provided ten assists in 24 Premier League starts for Villa, putting him on a platform as one of the league's best as he eventually earned a seismic £100m move to Manchester City.

During that campaign, he averaged a Sofascore rating of 7.54 and created a whopping 3.2 chances per game as he consistently provided brilliant performances for Dean Smith's outfit.

That came after he managed eight goals and five assists in the previous season to help the club avoid relegation back down to the Championship.

This season, no Villa player is averaging a Sofascore rating higher than 6.99 (Ashley Young) and this indicates that Grealish would return as the club's star man once again. Indeed, he'd be a huge upgrade capable of finally reaching those elusive European spots.