Grealish blasted by Southgate and dropped for next England match? Well not exactly…
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Gareth Southgate does not hand out public lashings and try as they might to twist his words, the papers can’t get his Jack Grealish ‘warning’ to stand up.
Hit the road, Jack
There is not a great deal the nation’s newspapers enjoy more than having their cake and eating it. Well, not a great deal Mediawatch’s lawyers (ha!) are comfortable with us putting in print, so let’s move swiftly on.
Anyway, after many days of the tabloids and broadsheets very much getting their Grealish fill – ‘Hilarious moment Man City hero Jack Grealish is carried by Kyle Walker and offered WHEELCHAIR after huge booze session’ was a personal favourite from The Sun, who would definitely have reacted the same if it was Raheem Sterling – here comes the backlash.
England play Malta on Friday and even though Grealish and his Manchester City teammates were never intended to start that match, he was obviously the subject of many press conference questions.
And while Southgate sidestepped most of them with his usual air of sensibility, the journalists in attendance did manage to squeeze some words out of the manager which, with enough sensationalist contortions, could potentially be construed as a criticism of sorts. And sit down for this one, for it is positively scathing.
There is a line.
Woah. Chill out, Gareth. Is this the end of Grealish’s international career?
Obviously not, but it is certainly the end of the love-in for his ‘boozy antics’ and ‘three-day benders’ for the time being.
Those four words prompted this from Mark Irwin of The Sun:
GARETH SOUTHGATE has warned Jack Grealish and the Manchester City booze boys: The party stops here.
Except he didn’t, because such a warning isn’t at all necessary. ‘Grealish and the Manchester City booze boys’ – an awful band name – secured the Treble on Saturday, celebrated it until Monday and reported for England duty on Tuesday, precisely when they were meant to.
Why would Southgate ‘warn’ consummate professionals who turned up to work on time and in perfectly fine condition that ‘the party stops here’? Feels like those very successful, trophy-winning players probably know not only that “a line exists”, but also exactly where it is.
Here is Jacob Steinberg’s offering in The Guardian:
Gareth Southgate has warned Jack Grealish not to cross the line with his partying after winning trophies.
Nope. That’s not a thing he did. Just like there wasn’t ‘also a message to Grealish about his wild celebrations days before an England international’. Southgate said he has “spoken with the players and we have talked about where our focus needs to be and where we need them to be,” which doesn’t really sound like it was specifically directed at Grealish himself.
The confusion with the very basic facts continues in The Times, whose headline of, ‘There is a line, Gareth Southgate tells Jack Grealish,’ is among the worst of the lot.
‘Southgate did not criticise Grealish,’ Tom Roddy writes, struggling to mask his disappointment while at least acknowledging a blatant truth.
Another fun headline comes from the Daily Telegraph, who go for ‘Southgate warns Grealish ‘there is a line’ for post-season celebrations’.
Mike McGrath again writes that the England manager ‘stopped short of criticising the partying that took some players to Ibiza but says they should not overstep the mark.’ So it’s probably a very good job they didn’t.
Chris McKenna of the Daily Star joins in with the ‘warning’ chorus and says ‘Southgate refused to criticise Grealish’s partying or question if he should have reined it in just days out from two internationals.’
Funnily enough, that paragraph still works if you replace ‘refused to’ with ‘didn’t’. It’s an improvement actually. Great ‘just days’ though. Textbook.
But the worst effort to manufacture any sort of controversy comes from an unexpected source: John Cross in the Daily Mirror. A usually reasonable, rational reporter of all things England, he has instead jumped head first into the trap laid ever so carefully by his colleagues.
Gareth Southgate has warned “there is a line” when it comes to players over celebrating.
As has been established: nope.
England boss Southgate did not say whether Grealish had crossed the line and insisted he would not berate the players in public but it is unlikely any manager would want his players out on the town ahead of qualifying fixtures.
It is unlikely that someone would be paid handsomely to pretend to know the innermost thoughts of someone else based entirely on archaic opinions but here we are.
Southgate, who confirmed Harry Kane will captain the team and hinted Trent Alexander-Arnold will play in midfield, admitted the five City players are now unlikely to play in Malta but could feature against North Macedonia.
Well that is complete and utter horsesh*t and Cross knows it. Southgate ‘admitted the five City players are now unlikely to play in Malta’? Absolute disingenuous nonsense; they were never going to start because they reported for duty long after the rest of the squad – as planned – but could still feature.
As Southgate himself said: “We weren’t considering those boys to start this game. We were hopeful they could play some part and that is still the case. But with the tactical preparation that we knew we needed to do earlier in the week, we always knew they were going to report Tuesday night, Wednesday was going to be light and Thursday the usual light session. So unless we had a problem we were not aiming to put those players into this game.”
So suggesting they are now unlikely to play, implying that it’s because of their celebrations after the Champions League final, is wilfully and weirdly misleading.
That is in direct contrast to City’s Dutch defender Nathan Ake who started for Holland on Wednesday night in the Nations League.
It truly is difficult to see why the Netherlands might want one of their best defenders to feature in a Nations League semi-final against Croatia, while England back Marcus Rashford and Bukayo Saka to fare well enough without Grealish against Malta.
Some of the reporting is quite frankly pathetic. And they can’t even use the excuse of needing to force a back page, considering the Ashes and Jude Bellingham’s Real Madrid unveiling covered that.
Credit where it’s due
Fair play to the London Evening Standard and Dan Kilpatrick – ‘Gareth Southgate unworried by Jack Grealish’s raucous Man City celebrations ahead of England duty’ – for almost singularly resisting the temptation to board the hypocritical bandwagon.
Greal deal
But it would not be right to discuss an England subject without at least consulting Henry Winter of The Times. Any thoughts, Mr Chief Football Writer?
Grealish does indeed have ‘every right to celebrate what he and City achieved’. Thank the lord that literally no-one (of actual importance or relevance) has said otherwise.
Nice dig at Southgate, though. That ‘fury’ clearly has not subsided when it comes to a manager who England should presumably still sack – but not before he has delivered a rollocking to Grealish.