- Grealish parties hard after UCL win
- Southgate not impressed with his drinking
- Warns midfielder that there is "a line"
WHAT HAPPENED? Premier League and FA Cup triumphs were followed by lifting the club's first ever Champions League trophy in Istanbul courtesy of a 1-0 win over Inter in Istanbul. This sent the entire Manchester City team into a frenzy with Grealish leading the celebrations. He was spotted dominating City's bus parade with his shirt off and was subsequently covered in champagne by Erling Haaland. Although the midfielder has returned to international duty, for the upcoming European qualifiers against Malta and North Macedonia respectively, he looked exhausted while posing with three fingers up alongside fellow City stars Phil Foden, John Stones, Kalvin Phillips and Kyle Walker.
WHAT THEY SAID: Southgate, who was keeping a close eye on his celebrations has warned Grealish to maintain "a line" while celebrating success.
"There is a line. I have spoken with the players and we have talked about where our focus needs to be and where we need them to be," he told reporters. "We have acknowledged what they have experienced and that is for me to manage over the coming weeks. A few of our players would be teetotal [when I played]. What is different is that everyone posts everything. I wouldn’t have liked a few of my nights out to be posted publicly. My generation would have been in a lot more problems."
THE BIGGER PICTURE: Southgate informed that he would rest all City players for the game against Malta and would give the opportunity to players who have been training from the start of the camp.
"In our head we weren’t thinking of including the City players for this game. We’ve been through this scenario three or four times in the last few years with our players leading into games. It’s a huge occasion," he added. "We’ve got a lot of our players in for the full training week and we were able to work tactically. And we needed to give those guys [City’s players] the time to take everything in. But point No 1, they all wanted to come in to be with the group, which is fantastic. The focus has been good."
Next Match
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WHAT NEXT? While Southgate has already informed that Grealish and his other Manchester City team-mates will be rested against Malta, it remains to be seen if they are brought back into action against North Macedonia on June 19.