It’s not alright Jack. Don’t be the bloke with a bottle people will talk about in the same way as Gazza STAN COLLYMORE

JACK GREALISH is a lovely, down-to-earth kid and I’ll start my latest column on him by saying the same thing I’ve said in the four or five I’ve written about him in the past.

Which is that all of the below is said only because I care.

But whenever I see pictures of Grealish absolutely lagging – as he did (above and right) to celebrate Manchester City’s Treble triumph – I fear he is making a rod for his own back. And I really don’t want that to be the case for him during his career or beyond it.

Look, don’t get me wrong, I enjoyed myself when I was a professional footballer – boy, did I enjoy myself.

So before anyone accuses me of being a curmudgeon or a hypocrite, I’m not trying to do that.

But what I do want Jack to realise is that there’s a time and a place... and the days before an international gettogether is neither.

The problem in this country is that Dave the plasterer from Scunthorpe will have seen the pictures of Grealish being held up by team-mates and said, ‘Go on, Jack, that’s what I’d have done’.

Well, sorry, Dave, you’re not him, you hadn’t got to report for international duty. And frankly, no one gives two hoots about what you get up to in Magaluf or Malia.

Friction

Grealish would have been better having one night to celebrate and then waiting until Tuesday, or tomorrow night if he really couldn’t, to head off to Las Vegas with his mates. This isn’t necessarily about what the general public thinks, either, but about how these things can be perceived by squad mates.

If you’ve been a consummate pro and someone else hasn’t, yet he gets indulged for it, then you start to think, ‘Hang on, how is he getting away with things I wouldn’t?’

And it can cause friction.

I saw it first hand with Paul Gascoigne.

When he scored a wonder goal against Scotland at Wembley in 1996, Gazza was