Jack Grealish dropped from Aston Villa squad as Remi Garde takes action over alcohol-fuelled nightclub party
Grealish was caught on video partying at a nightclub late on Saturday night just hours after the 4-0 defeat by Everton
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Your support makes all the difference.Jack Grealish has been banished from the Aston Villa first-team squad by manager Remi Garde after he was seen partying in a nightclub hours after the 4-0 defeat by Everton on Saturday night.
20-year-old Grealish has been sent to train with Villa’s development squad by Garde after the revelations were made on Monday in the Daily Mail. With Villa sitting bottom of the Premier League table and winless since the opening day of the season, Garde – who replaced Tim Sherwood at the start of the month – is under pressure to turn results around and maintain the club’s top-flight status.
According to The Telegraph, Grealish will not be fined given that he is not seen to be doing anything wrong in the video – although friends in the group he is with are seen drinking and inhaling nitrous oxide from a balloon – but with Villa on a torrid run of results, Grealish’s actions haven’t helped their image.
The midfielder has been out-of-form himself, having scored just once in the League this season, and his latest controversy comes just a few months after he was pictured apparently unconscious in the street during a holiday in Tenerife.
Sherwood fined Grealish on that occasion and gave him a serious verbal warning, with a further newspaper revelation showing him inhaling nitrous oxide – otherwise known as laughing gas or ‘hippy crack’ – straining relations at the Midlands club even further.
Garde could elect to drop Grealish for this weekend’s visit of Watford to Villa Park in what is quickly becoming a run of must-win fixtures. With Southampton, Arsenal and West Ham all set to face Villa before the end of the year, Garde’s side must start picking up points against the likes of the Hornets and Newcastle next month if they are to become the first side in Premier League history to stay up despite winning just five points from their opening 13 matches.
Grealish has only seen 90 minutes out in five of his 12 appearances this season in all competitions, and having emerged on the seen with a man-of-the-match performance against Liverpool in last season’s FA Cup semi-final victory, there is a belief that he is not meeting his potential so far this campaign.
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