Everton won three in a row without Grealish, and his apology won't buy him his spot back

Jack Grealish said sorry on Thursday. The harder part is that Everton have spent the last four weeks proving they can win without him. The on-loan Manchester City winger posted an apology to the club and its fans on his Instagram story after playing in a behind-closed-doors win over Championship side Derby County at Hill Dickinson Stadium, his first game since Oct. 17. In the meantime, David Moyes' team won three straight and climbed to sixth in the Premier League.

"Nice to be back out there with the boys today after a good few days training," Grealish wrote, per BBC Sport. "I want to apologise to the fans and everyone at the club for not being able to help the team the last few weeks. I love playing for this club and can't wait to be back playing in front of you guys in an Everton shirt."

Everton have never spelled out what happened. Moyes said it was the club's decision to leave Grealish out of the Carabao Cup win over Newcastle because of "a breach of club discipline," and BBC Sport understood it came from an unauthorized absence from training the Monday after the 2-0 loss at Arsenal, a game he had already missed through illness. Before the Newcastle league game on Nov. 2 the club only said he was "not match-fit." Asked before the Coventry game whether the international break could settle things, Moyes answered: "We just need to wait and see how things go."

The timeline is what makes this more than a routine return. Grealish missed four matches: the Arsenal defeat, both Newcastle games in the league and the Carabao Cup, and the 3-1 win over Coventry before the break. Everton lost the first and won the next three, which put them into the Carabao Cup quarterfinals, at League Two side Fleetwood Town, and up to sixth in the table, according to The Independent.

Grealish, meanwhile, had made only six appearances in his second loan spell before falling out of the side, per BBC Sport, and he is still without a goal or an assist for Everton this season. That is a long way from last season's first loan, when he looked like a player who had found a home on Merseyside before a foot injury in January ended his campaign.

Everton's squad is thin after a dissapointing summer window, as BBC Sport noted, and Moyes has been leaning on every senior player he has. A 31-year-old with 39 England caps is not someone a club in sixth with that depth can afford to leave on the shelf for long.

There is also the bigger picture. Everton chief executive Angus Kinnear said in August that Grealish had "fallen in love with the right shade of blue" but is "ultimately a City player," and that the way fans embraced him gave the club "a good platform to have a longer term conversation with him." A public apology keeps that conversation alive. Another month out of the team would not.

Everton return on Nov. 23 at Brentford. The Derby friendly suggests a line has been drawn, but Moyes now has a winning team to pick from, and Grealish will have to take a place from someone who earned it while he was gone.