Jack Grealish

[Canadian Rover]

Apparently photographed shit faced laid out in the middle of the road whilst on a lads holiday.

Villa are looking into it...which made me think... is the off season...what would your thoughts be seeing Harry Forrester or Jack McKay in the same scenario now?

Would you be bothered?  Not as if there is a game coming up...or should they be more professional? Even in the off season.

[NickDRFC]

It's a tough one really...during the season they have to look after themselves but they are young lads and entitled to let their hair down in the close season as long as they don't hurt anyone. However it does heap embarrassment on the club - could he not have had a few beers and not got in that state/had an afterparty at his place with people he knows/trusts? I'm sure footballers getting sh!tfaced in the close season is nothing new, it's just that every man and his dog now has a camera phone to capture it. On balance I think as long as they're not doing anything to hurt anyone else I'm not bothered, but I can see why others might be.

[GazLaz]

I was in the same position in the middle of London on Saturday night and I'm 30 odd. That was partly due to having to pay £16 a drink though.

[rtid88]

He is a 19 year old lad on holiday with his mates probably for the 1st time and the lad got drunk!! End of story!! If this hasn't happened to every single one of us on this forum then u have led a very sheltered life!!

[drfchound]

In my opinion, just leave the lad alone.
Why make a fuss and judge him.

[BillyStubbsTears]

I suspect this is not unconnected to why England have under-achieved for the past half century.

I wonder if Mueller, Pirlo and Iniesta have ever been found face down in the road shit-faced?

[rtid88]

Perhaps not face down in the road drunk but of course they have all been out drinking it's just the press over there just don't make as big a deal out of it! I'm sure if you typed any famous footballers name into Google along with the word drunk it would come up with various pictures and videos!

[NickDRFC]

He is a 19 year old lad on holiday with his mates probably for the 1st time and the lad got drunk!! End of story!! If this hasn't happened to every single one of us on this forum then u have led a very sheltered life!!

It's happened to me plenty but I'm not a professional athlete not do I live my life in the public eye. However given you've now said its the "end of" it I fully expect that's the last we'll hear of it, both on here and in the national press.

[NickDRFC]

I'm afraid I don't know how to post pictures but here's a belter of Pirlo off his rocker...

http://www.footballerswines.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/Pirlo-wine.jpg

[BillyStubbsTears]

RTID

True, you can find videos of all of those players drunk while celebrating success. But there's a huge gulf between letting your hair down and having a few drinks while celebrating, Ns drinking yourself comatose.

I've no evidence that our footballers are worse binge drinkers than any other country's. But we as a nation are one of the heaviest binge drinkers in Europe and since our cultural tendency to overdo the booze is so ingrained, it'd be surprising if that issue didn't also affect a higher proportion of English players than players of most other nationalities. There has to be some underlying reason why we are so shit at producing genuinely world class players and this might be part of the story.

Its interesting how many top players from the UK have had serious drink problems. Greaves, Best and Gazza come to mind immediately. It's quite personal for me - my uncle was an ex-First Division striker and his Saturday night routine regularly left him face down outside a boozer. He died of liver failure in his late 50s a few years ago.

[graingrover]

My experience of the  French football professionl was that  alcohol is certainly not part of their social culture .I was a guest at a 'footballer's wedding and there was no wine at the top table where all the players sat through a 5 hour long  wedding dinner.When I am occasionally out with the same group they don't drink alcohol when socialising together either..

[GazLaz]

Tony Adams didn't do too bad and he was an alchy. It's like when people have a go at Wilshere for smoking when it has absolutely zero affect on his performance.

[BillyStubbsTears]

Gaz

It's about the 2 and 3% differences. That's what separates a very good player from a great player.

Tony Adams "didn't do so bad?" Go and mention Tony Adams to a German or an Italian. They'll scratch their heads and think hard for a while. They might just remember him as a half-decent player who won nothing of note on the international stage.

Compare and contrast with Sammer or Maldini. They were all-time greats. Adams was a second-rater by comparison. And the difference between them was only a few %. And might have been less still if he wasn't an alky.

[GazLaz]

Adams was the best centre half we've had in the last 20 years (probably). He was top class.

[glosterred]

He's not the first kid to do that and will not be the last. Part of growing up let the kid alone.

[dickos1]

You can't judge a player as being top class or not on what they've won at international level..
What did best win, giggs, messi, ronaldo,

[BillyStubbsTears]

Gaz.

Aye. He was the best centre back that WE'VE had. And not  in the same class as Maldini, Sammer or Cannavaro. That's kind of my point. If we produce a good un, we tell ourselves that they are the best. Italy, Germany, Spain and France regularly turn out players who have that extra 2-3% higher quality and level of professionalism that marks out the truly great.

While ever we are satisfied that producing an alcoholic Tony Adams is sufficient, we'll continue to be second rate.

[nortikorner]

Was the lad Drunk or are there other things that could affected is well being ie (sunstroke with drink food poisoning an other things that could put him in that position) we are all to eager to pre judge

[BillyStubbsTears]

Dickos

I'm not sure where I've ever said that you have to win a World Cup to be judged a great player. I'm saying that as a country, we are simply incapable of producing sufficient numbers of great players to get remotely close to winning a World Cup. Which means that there is a systemic problem, because we produce as many players as most comparable countries. It's just that they do it better than we do.

[BillyStubbsTears]

So what he likes to party. Get over it

Of course. His choice. Just don't expect him to be an integral part of a successful England team.

[GazLaz]

You've named 3 better from the last 25years. There aren't too many more.

[BillyStubbsTears]

Gaz

Off the top of my head I'd put Carvalho, Desailly, Blanc, Pique, Ramos, DeBoer all above Adams. And I don't follow top level football particularly closely these days - I'm sure I'm missing plenty of others.

[drfchound]

It appears to me that BST just wants to slag any English player and find reasons why other nationalities are better.
As for whether Adams was better than the list in that last post, well you could argue that he was better than some of them.

[GazLaz]

Ramos?? You obviously don't BST!

[The Red Baron]

Ramos?? You obviously don't BST!

That one stuck out to me. A distinctly average defender who has had the good fortune to play with some very good players.

[Canadian Rover]

But doesn't it all make a mockery out of all the sports science, dieticians and individual fitness programs? And more importantly a mockery of massive wages and ticket prices.

[GazLaz]

Ramos?? You obviously don't BST!

That one stuck out to me. A distinctly average defender who has had the good fortune to play with some very good players.

Average he's not. He's not brilliant either though.

[BillyStubbsTears]

Yep, I'll give you that one lads. Head not one straight.

[BillyStubbsTears]

DrfcHound

Quite the contrary actually. I would LOVE us to produce players who are better than those of other nations.

It's just that we don't.  We TELL ourselves that our players are as good as those of other nations. But the evidence over 45 years of tournament results is that we have never produced a group of players who have been in the top 3 in the world or the top 2 in Europe. On average, we produce about the 10th best team in Europe and the 16th best in the world.

I'm not scratting around looking for reasons to slag our players off. It's there in the record. Whatever one's opinion of individuals (and we all differ) the fact is that we simply do not produce many players who excel on the highest stage and we certainly do not produce teams who do so.

But we comfort ourselves by telling ourselves that we DO produce top rate players, and it is just bad luck (injuries, cheating foreigners, widths of posts, ale) that prevents them from showing that they are as good as everyone else.

Claiming that Tony Adams as an example of a top-rate player kind of makes the point for me. No other major footballing power in Europe would look upon Adams as the best that they have produced in a couple of generations. As I said, maybe he would have been if he'd kept off the ale, but we'll never know. 

Believe me, I would really like to be able to eat humble pie on this in a few years time and say that I was too pessimistic on English football. But experience suggests that it'll be the same round of build-em-up and see-em-fail again.

[DRFC-Hanksie]

I'm surprised Sean Thornton hasn't been mentioned yet.