Sherwood asked Redknapp to sign teenage Jack Grealish at Tottenham
Tim Sherwood reveals he told Harry Redknapp to sign a 16-year-old Jack Grealish for Tottenham in a swap deal for Jermaine Jenas… but the former Spurs boss said no to £100m Man City winger
- Tim Sherwood has opened up on how Tottenham nearly signed Jack Grealish
- Sherwood recommended Spurs boss Harry Redknapp sign the then-teen star
- Redknapp declined a swap for Jermaine Jenas; Grealish is now a £100m player
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Tim Sherwood has opened up on how he recommended that Tottenham sign a teenage Jack Grealish – but the club turned him down.
The former Spurs and Aston Villa manager revealed he first saw Grealish in an Under-18s match while working as Harry Redknapp’s assistant at White Hart Lane.
The winger, then 16, impressed Sherwood to the extent that he reported straight back to Redknapp to insist he sign the young prodigy in a swap deal for first-team midfielder Jermaine Jenas.
But Sherwood told talkSPORT he could not persuade his boss to get the deal done.
He said: ‘I remember going back to the first-team game at White Hart Lane and Redknapp said, “Well what was the score?” and I said, “I don’t know H, all I was doing was watching this boy Grealish”, it was incredible.
Tim Sherwood, 54, has revealed how he nearly signed a teenage Jack Grealish for Tottenham
Sherwood told his boss, then-Spurs manager Harry Redknapp, to bring Grealish in from Aston Villa in a swap deal for first-team midfielder Jermaine Jenas (pictured)
But the former Villa and Spurs manager said Redknapp (pictured) turned down his request
Winger Grealish, now 27, joined champions Manchester City for £100million in summer 2021
I said, “[Villa] want to take Jermaine Jenas, we should do a swap for this boy.” Harry, quite rightly, said, “He’s only 16, by the time he’s in the first-team I’ll be gone”.
‘As a football manager he’s absolutely right, looking after yourself as you would do.
‘But for the club it would’ve been a great move. It would’ve been a great move for Jermaine as he ended up going to Villa [on loan] anyway.’
When asked if Villa would have agreed to let Grealish go for Jenas, Sherwood added: ‘Yeah. Absolutely. There was more need for Jermaine in their team than there was for a young Jack Grealish.
‘That’s when you can nick players, when someone’s desperate, if you want a swap now. For the here and now they would’ve taken Jermaine Jenas to try and stay in the league as they were trying to survive for many, many years.’
Sherwood, 54, became Villa boss in 2015 and went on to give Grealish, now 27, his full Premier League debut.
While still at Villa, Tottenham came in for Grealish and it looked so certain a deal would be done, the gifted attacker blew goodbye kisses to fans – before the deal eventually fell through.
He later joined Premier League champions Manchester City for £100million in summer 2021, the seventh-most expensive transfer of all time.
