Phil Foden's 'incredible' training performance left Pep Guardiola with no option but to start the winger for Manchester City's win over West Ham, which is hardly surprising to anyone who's seen him kick a football in recent seasons. What is more surprising is that he replaced Riyad Mahrez on the right, rather than Jack Grealish on the left.
This was Foden's first start on the right wing since the opening day of last season, and only his eighth game on the right out of 169 City appearances. The Blues are lighter in that position this year after Raheem Sterling and Gabriel Jesus left, but Foden had made the left-wing his own over the last 12 months and was widely expected to continue there this season.
Not if Jack Grealish has anything to say about it, though, and it was telling that Guardiola singled Grealish out for unprompted praise after the West Ham win as the £100million signing took his good pre-season form into the Premier League.
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The action that saw Guardiola praise Grealish was the fine move that saw Kevin De Bruyne split the West Ham defence and free Erling Haaland for his clinical second goal. City had been under pressure from West Ham, with the Blues regaining possession from a Hammers attack but had been forced back to Ederson.
The goalkeeper calmly passed to Nathan Ake in his own area, under pressure, who found Grealish coming back midway into his own half on the touchline. Grealish, pressed by Vladimir Coufal, was pushed back towards his own goal, with two more West Ham players closing in and he ended up on the corner of his own box by the time he was able to play inside to Rodri after Joao Cancelo had made a run to drag away one of the markers.
Rodri turned, played in De Bruyne, and the resulting move has been replayed thousands of times since Sunday afternoon.
"The second goal was an incredible action for Jack, the goal belongs to him," Guardiola said after the game. "He keeps the ball, dragged opponents, finds the perfect ball to Rodri, this happens with space and then Kevin is difficult to stop. We'll find many games five at the back in the box. we'll have to find alternatives."
The biggest compliment to pay to Grealish vs West Ham is that he was often unnoticeable, just playing the simple balls, making the right decisions, and keeping City's unique tactical plan in operation by sticking wide.
David Moyes noted how key Grealish was to City's win, explaining how his side brought bodies in the centre to deal with the double inverted full-backs, leaving Grealish and Foden in space.
He said: "They were different because of where they played both their full-backs playing either side of Rodri. It caused us a different problem, they outnumbered in midfield, we couldn't get on the ball. When we brought players in to cope they played to Grealish or Foden and got some width."
Foden has made the London Stadium his playground in the past, but his performance was muted compared to Grealish at the weekend. Grealish made 69 passes compared to Foden's 54, with 37 per cent of those forward passes whereas only 29 per cent of Foden's balls were forward. Foden attempted nine dribbles, completing six, while Grealish attempted just three - although Grealish was not dispossessed all game, and one of those dribbles was the action praised publicly by Guardiola.
Looking at the heatmaps of the two players, Foden's touches were largely confined to a rectangle between the halfway line, the touchline and an imaginary line from the outside corner of the box. In contrast, Grealish's heatmap starts about five yards inside from the touchline and five yards in the West Ham half from the halfway line. He then comes inside as far across to the centre of the Hammers half, and much closer to the opposition box as he drifted inside at times.
With a 92 per cent pass rate, Grealish appears to be ready to improve on his overall figure of 88 per cent from last season - although his quieter game vs Liverpool which saw just 17 passes at a success rate of 70 per cent shows there is always room for improvement.
He spoke at the end of last season about combining his natural instinct to drive forward and Guardiola's requirement to keep possession and build attacks slowly. On the evidence of his bright pre-season and performance vs West Ham, he looks to be on the way to achieving that.
And with four starts in succession on the left wing, even forcing Foden out to the right, and earning a shoutout from Guardiola, it seems Grealish may be the first-choice left-winger for the start of the new campaign. Maybe not even Grealish himself would have seen that coming at the end of last season.
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