“Worst pain ever” - How Sheffield United’s Oli McBurnie put Man City’s Jack Grealish out for weeks

Jack Grealish has opened up on his “worst injury ever” after suffering an innocuous-looking dead leg against Sheffield United earlier this season. The Manchester City star missed almost a month after his side’s late victory at Bramall Lane, in which he set up Erling Haaland’s opener before Rodri’s late winner.

Grealish was left on crutches after the game and described the injury as, apart from a kidney injury he sustained six years ago, “the most painful I have had,” adding: “You might all laugh at me now, but it was only a dead leg. But it was the worst dead leg I have had in my life. I genuinely could not walk. I was on crutches for a few days after the game and I swear I could not even explain this pain.

“I could not bend my leg. Usually when you have a groin or a hamstring injury, you can go and do a bike session. But I could not bend my leg to get on the bike. For three and a half weeks I could not do one cardiovascular session, so I felt quite unfit, not doing enough – just icing it and getting treatment. So the last couple of weeks I have still been trying to work my way back to full fitness.

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“Our doc at City, who has worked at AC Milan and everything, he said ‘that’s the worst dead leg I’ve ever seen, by a mile’. And it wasn’t even bad, the tackle. It was Oli McBurnie against Sheffield United. If I showed you the tackle now, you’d be like: ‘Get up you…’ You know what I mean? It doesn’t even look that bad. But the pain, honestly, on the way back from the game. After the game it was sore.

“But when I was on the coach, I was like: ‘Nah. I need something here, doc.’ And then I went to walk off the coach back into the training ground at City and I genuinely could not walk, honestly. I had to get crutches and stuff. Yeah, it was the worst pain ever. Five weeks later, it’s all right. So I am just trying to catch up and do my own little mini pre-season.”