Jack Grealish reported for Manchester City's pre-season training earlier this month, then stayed home while 28 of his teammates flew east.

City's pre-season tour stops in Hong Kong and Seoul, where they are scheduled to face Inter Milan, the K-League All Stars, and Atlético Madrid across three friendlies. Grealish was not on the plane. So was Kalvin Phillips, another high-profile name left off the travelling squad.

BBC sources say Grealish is still recuperating from a foot injury he suffered in January 2025, during a loan spell at Everton that was cut short by the problem. He has not played competitive football since the start of 2025 — more than 18 months without a match, for a player who once commanded a £100 million transfer fee. The BBC's attribution rests on anonymous sources rather than an official club statement or direct comment from the manager, which is worth noting for anyone weighing how firmly the injury explanation is settled.

City's manager, Enzo Maresca, addressed Grealish's situation with the kind of diplomatic non-answer that tends to speak louder than a straight reply. "At the moment, he is here. He is a Manchester City player … and then we see what happens," Maresca said, BBC Sport. The ellipsis is doing a lot of work in that sentence.

Grealish is entering the final 12 months of his City contract, with little sign of fresh terms being offered. His wages are reported at £300,000 per week — a figure that, for any club considering a move for a player who has barely kicked a ball in a year and a half, complicates the arithmetic considerably.

For fans trying to read between the lines, the picture is familiar. A player on a big contract, entering its final year, carrying a long-term injury, left off a pre-season tour, and spoken about by his manager in the conditional tense — these are the ingredients of a quiet exit being staged at low volume. Whether that exit leads to another Premier League club, a move abroad, or something nobody has flagged yet is the kind of question that pre-season tours tend to answer, sometimes before anyone officially asks it.

Phillips finds himself in a similar holding pattern. Like Grealish, he was part of England's squad not so long ago and arrived at City with significant expectations. Also like Grealish, he has spent recent seasons increasingly away from the pitch rather than on it.

What gives the Grealish situation its particular weight is the gap between what he was and where he stands. In 2021, he became the most expensive player in British football history when he joined City from Aston Villa. He was a regular during the 2022–23 treble-winning season — the Premier League, the FA Cup, and the Champions League, a feat no English club had achieved before. Now he trains, stays home, and waits.

City, meanwhile, are getting on with their preparations. The Asia tour gives Maresca a chance to work with his squad — 28 strong — ahead of a season that will demand results from the opening whistle. Inter, the K-League All Stars, and Atlético will all provide different tests across different cities, and the players who made the trip will be the ones shaping the manager's plans.

Grealish, for now, is not among them.