Jack Grealish ‘not sure’ on Aston Villa future but says it would ‘mean everything’ to keep club in Premier League

A big performance from the captain against the Gunners

Jack Grealish was one of the top performers in Aston Villa‘s vital win over Arsenal on Wednesday night and the No10 said it would mean “everything” to help his side survive this season, even if he doesn’t know if he’ll still be at the club next term.

A 1-0 win, combined with Watford losing 4-0 earlier in the evening, sent Villa above the bottom three on goal difference with one match to play.

Another win on Sunday against West Ham will almost certainly keep them up now, unless Watford or Bournemouth pull of some high-scoring heroics of their own.

For Grealish, the three points obtained against the Gunners was a long-overdue reward for some improved Villa displays since the restart, which he told Sky Sports the entire squad had been working hard on.

“It was unbelievable, deserved as well. Our game management, defensive display, the way we counter-attacked; the only problem was we should have got another goal but we take 1-0 against Arsenal all day,” he said at full-time.

“It has been a tense day but all we can do is focus on ourselves. The ball is in our hand now, it’s a massive game against West Ham and we’ll give it our all.

“It’s massive, since we’ve come back we’ve deserved a little bit more than we’ve actually got. Certain things we struggled with before Covid—set pieces, conceding too many goals—but we had Zoom calls twice a week and then working every day in training since we’ve been back and we’ve been brilliant defending and scoring from set-pieces, so it shows we were working hard.”

Looking further ahead, Grealish was asked about how much keeping Villa up would mean to him—and whether this might have been a farewell appearance at Villa Park, with rumours ongoing regarding a summer transfer away.

“It would mean everything to me [to keep Villa up]. Since we’ve been back I haven’t been as effective as I was before. I haven’t felt as fit as I did before the break but I just need to do what I do and I think I did today.

“I’m not too sure [on my future], I have one aim and that’s to keep Villa in the Premier League. The whole fan base knows we belong in the Premier League; hopefully we can do that on Sunday.”