Jack Grealish is being treated as shamefully as Gazza

A picture may be worth a thousand words but it rarely tells the whole story. Yet many have rushed to judgement following the latest round of viral Jack Grealish photos.

The 30-year-old has been photographed asleep at a bar in Manchester, with a table of drinks in front of him and what appears to be a friend trying to rouse him to no avail.

Sold to The Sun and now spread across social media, the photos have elicited extreme assumptions about the Manchester City winger, who is currently on loan at Everton.

Without knowledge of how much he has drunk, claims of alcohol problems. Without any further context, questions over his professionalism, given both City and Everton were playing around the reported time. And without knowing his mood, he is supposedly either sad, depressed or relaxed.

All this from a few still images. What we can safely assume is that he was tired, and what we do know is that Grealish has been out of action since January and will miss the remainder of the season – a foot injury ruling him out of World Cup contention as well.

He may not play a competitive match for seven months in total. He has shared his own pictures of the arduous rehabilitation process – featuring scooters, saunas, physiotherapy and gym sessions – on Instagram, and yet these photos of him snoozing are supposedly proof he has chosen alcohol over his comeback.

Such leaps are made because social media is a platform for assumptions, and because in this crossover age of celebrity and camera phones, we have allowed for the most minuscule pieces of information to form conclusions about people we don’t actually know.

The smartphone is a torment for celebrities. The public are the paparazzi, and this normalisation has drastically blurred the lines around privacy – many forgetting, or not caring, that what takes a split-second can impact a lifetime.

Past Premier League footballers may lament the modern money but they are glad to have missed the era of camera phones – the constant request for selfies, the attempts to antagonise while being recorded, and the YouTubers who attend games only to record themselves.

He can feel the lens too. In 2023 Grealish bristled at his “party boy” reputation after celebrating Manchester City’s treble with plenty of alcohol and no regrets.

“I wasn’t the only one,” he added. “I think a lot of the time you’ll see everyone recording me, I could show you all this stuff of other people where they were the same… We all enjoyed ourselves, other people enjoy themselves where the cameras weren’t.”

With the spotlight firmly on him, for some that alone makes these new photos inexcusable. You can’t get snapped asleep at a bar if you’re not out in public asleep at a bar, and yet here is Grealish gifting the vultures.

That is his fault and the fault of those around him, but around the wider issue of privacy he remains easy prey. When the pound signs flash up, and the moment prompts opportunity for profit, any worry over what may count as intrusion becomes secondary. Look! A regular guy in an irregular job drinking alcohol. And because we all consume that content, we are all to blame.