'I gave Jack Grealish his debut – he'd try and push the wrong buttons with me'

Paul Lambert has lifted the lid on managing Jack Grealish when he was 'only a baby'. The Scot gave Grealish, now an integral part of Manchester City's Treble-winning side, his debut for Aston Villa and has shared his memories of the winger.

He said: "I gave Jack [Grealish] his debut, at Villa. I think he would've been 16 at the time, and the kids had got to the final of the NextGen Series against Chelsea, and I went over to Italy to watch it. And the two players who stood out to me were Jack and Callum Robinson.

"Jack always had a side to him in his locker which we all know about. He would sometimes try and push the wrong kind of buttons with me, but I'd seen it all before, so I knew the pitfalls."

Lambert also revealed that Grealish wasn't always easy to manage. saying: "You're swimming with sharks at times, as a football manager, and I didn't want him to go off the rails, because I could see a huge talent there. One week I had to pull him into the office for a misdemeanour, which was fine in the end."

Lambert reflected on Grealish's youth during his time at Villa. He said: "He was only a baby really, in footballing terms, at the time. You've got to remember that as a manager; it's about how you nurture talents like that."

In 2021, Grealish became a £100million player when he moved from his childhood team to Manchester City. Since then, he has won the Premier League twice and the Champions League.

* An AI tool was used to add an extra layer to the editing process for this story.