It was always going to be a thorny topic of conversation and the glare David Moyes fixed as he listened to the question confirmed as much.

Jack Grealish is back and available for Everton, a timely return for a squad that has been stretched to the limit of late. The likelihood is that he’ll get a hot reception at Villa Park, the place where he was once King before he was sold for a King’s ransom, but it won’t be any hotter than it has been in his own dressing room of late.

A red card in a 1-1 draw with Wolves on January 7, the first he had ever been shown in the Premier League, left Everton’s manager enraged. If you upset Moyes, you will soon find out about it and Grealish had no ambiguity over the error of his ways.

‘I didn’t look for an apology,’ Moyes replied, firmly, when asked if Grealish had sought him out to say sorry. ‘I just told him what I thought of him. That was it, really. I didn’t expect it. Probably the words that I said to him were strong enough that we didn’t really need (to say) anything else.’

Such was the controversy that surrounded Michael Keane’s dismissal in the same contest, for pulling the hair of Tolu Arokodare, Grealish’s expulsion almost went under the radar, in terms of a post-match discussion. That absolutely wasn’t the case, however, with Everton.

Grealish was banished for two cases of dissent, the second of which was sarcastically clapping at Tom Kirk, a 33-year-old who was officiating in the Premier League for just the second time. After the game had ended, the England international sought out the referee in the tunnel to air more grievances.

Moyes has never shied away from defending his own team, particularly in moments when he believes they have been wronged, but he will not accept unsportsmanlike conduct from his players or behaviour that goes against the grain. Grealish, here, had blotted his copybook.

‘Well, he certainly let us down,’ said Moyes. ‘We told him that after the game. He was well told by the players inside the dressing room as well. But it can happen. You can get sent-off for not much but I thought he was stupid to applaud the referee.

‘We’ve seen other incidents like that, which weren’t second yellow cards, but there you go.’

You do wonder whether this incident could be an important fork in the road. Moyes was the reason Everton were able to successfully land Grealish on loan from Manchester City last summer, his persistence and honesty striking a chord in the 30-year-old.

It was a fantastic move, the kind of which every impartial fan would have looked at and hoped for success. Grealish, with his cheeky nature and impudent style, is endearing and Everton had been crying out for a performer to lift their supporters ahead of their move to Hill Dickinson Stadium.

Grealish had received positive bulletins from his close friend Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall, another arrival at Everton in August, and in those opening months, you could see how much he had been revitalised, the potential to play regular football grasped as quickly as a cold bottle of water on a sunny day.

Before August was out, Grealish had already quadrupled his return for assists compared to last season, when he was nudged into the long grass by Pep Guardiola, and talk quickly turned to whether Everton would make the deal permanent.

Had they tried to buy him out right in 2025, it would have been close to £50million – the fee will be considerably different next summer, closer to £30million, if Everton decide to plough on and keep him; the move would certainly appeal to him, as his family are settled in the Northwest.

But there is more to it: Grealish played 10 games before the November international break, scoring one and contributing four assists; there have been nine appearances since then but only one goal and two assists, both of which came in a 4-2 home defeat to Brentford.

The numbers confirm what your eyes have seen: Grealish has had fewer shots, created fewer chances and had less touches in the opposition area; he’s been dribbling less – a surprise considering this is one of his biggest weapons – and the number of successful dribbles has dipped.

His inconsistencies through the deep of winter have matched the team in general but there is still plenty of time for him to change the narrative once again, away from headlines for that stupid banishment and a well-documented pre-Christmas night out in London that led to brows furrowing.

Moyes isn’t a man to hold a grudge but he is a man who expects certain standards and Grealish, who will have faced some form of disciplinary action, will be in no doubt of what he must do to make up for the aberration. Putting on a show at Villa Park would be a perfect step back in the right direction.

‘Well, he’s trained fine,’ said Moyes. ‘He shouldn’t need to learn now. He is an experienced player and he should know that there are levels you can go to and levels that you can’t. But he has trained fine and he looks ok.

‘He got a couple of assists against Brentford, though I know they didn’t count for much on the night. What we brought him for was to be an influential player. In the main, he has been an influential player for us and he has given the crowd here something new.

‘But his form had dropped off over the last month and it hadn’t been as good. But I think there have been some signs that he is getting back to being a little bit better – I’m hoping that we see it again in the coming weeks.’