Forum regular stennyvilla has had their say on Jack Grealish and his recent (at best) brain freeze in ignoring government (and his own) advice to remain indoors and only undertake travel if it is essential.
While I don’t necessarily agree with stenny’s shall-we-say ‘forgiving’ stance, there’s certainly a case to be made to put it down to (in)experience, and it’s what he does on the pitch that counts. But Jack is not a kid anymore and (for the time being at least) shoulders the responsibility of captaining this great club.
He’s no longer the 19-year-old spark out on a Tenerife street in the offseason, he’s a senior player flagrantly ignoring government guidelines and compounding matters by allegedly crashing his car for good measure. The nagging doubt over his behaviour and his ability to learn from his mistakes looms larger than ever, to my mind.
And as for his risible ‘apology’… beyond embarrassing.
— Jack Grealish (@JackGrealish) March 30, 2020
But here’s stenny’s thoughts…
Writer: stennyvilla
Jack Grealish has done wrong: lapsed into teenage problems of old; hypocritically broken important Covid-19 requirements at this terrible time. Got that. It’s happened. He’s been fined and pilloried for it, and it can’t be undone.
But his behaviour, demeanour, effort and performance have been exemplary for the last few years. There is no reason to presume that this lapse is only that, and he will take it on board and do everything right again.
So he still has my support, because of the other facts – because he is the best Villa player other than the Lord McGrath that I have seen in 60 years of watching Villa.
I am judging him as the footballing talent, entertainer, crucial asset, and fan, to boot, of Aston Villa FC. Providing he ticks those boxes and gives 100% to AVFC, then that’s it. He’s a great player for my club, and I’m a Villa fan.
The other stuff is for the club and authorities to deal with. I’m not at all excusing him, but if my support of AVFC depended on players doing the right things off the pitch as well as on it, I’d have given up years ago.
The wages players get, the poor attitudes of too many, the ‘me me me’ detachment from normal life and reality, Sky TV, zillions for agents, pundits, and relative nobodies, whilst others give their all in their jobs all year for the equivalent of half a day’s pay of some of our superstars is all wrong. It stinks. But I can’t stop supporting my club, for football reasons alone – it’s in the blood.
Comparing Jack’s lapse with the behaviour of the isolated few, like Marcus Rashford, does nothing for me either. A drop in the ocean. He’s asking for contributions from the public, with £100,00 raised last time I read – just peanuts, when he’s loaded and gets more than that every week.
Players offering to only ‘defer’ their pay for 3 months is pathetic too. Every established Premier League player could easily to give a million quid each to the NHS, say £300-400 million. But that will never happen. The entitlement and ‘the more they get the more they want’ philosophy is staggering.
And to close, I do also get that they don’t set the wages, so it’s not their fault etc.
But I can’t do with all this condemnation – there is so much wrong with what once was the people’s game, it is beyond me to lay into Jack. I just want him to never do stupid things again, save us from relegation, and be the Jack he has been for the last two seasons.
That’s who he is to me. The rest of his and the wider game’s faults, I may not like, but it’s not for me to sort.
Have your say in the forum debate here.
