Writing in his column on The Telegraph, Jamie Carragher has been discussing Jack Grealish and the treatment he received from the Aston Villa fans this week.
Grealish returned to Villa Park for the first time since his summer departure, and as you can imagine, fans had plenty to say about his return.
The England international wasn’t particularly well received by the supporters, despite the fact he left for £100m and tried to depart in the best way possible.
Carragher compared Grealish’s situation with Harry Kane’s, claiming that the Villa fans, this week, proved his theory about being able to leave on good terms with a fanbase wrong.
What’s been written about Grealish?
Carragher gave his view on the reception Grealish received.
“In the summer, I used this column to urge Harry Kane not to ruin his relationship with Tottenham Hotspur fans by pushing too hard for his move to Manchester City. “You have to conduct yourself differently as a local player,” I wrote. “You are held to a higher standard,” Carragher wrote.
“If the Grealish example is the new normal, I was wrong. Clearly it no longer matters how you leave a club if the supporters do not want you to go. You’re going to get hammered either way.”
The new normal
As Carragher says, it doesn’t matter how you leave a club these days, no matter what, you will be branded as a traitor.
We can understand that some players genuinely do leave on bad terms, just look at Fabian Delph as an Aston Villa example, but Grealish didn’t do anything particularly wrong.
Grealish could have left Villa years ago, but he stayed loyal and made sure to leave the club in a better place than just stuck struggling in the Championship.
Sadly, there’s something of a feeling of entitlement around most fanbases these days, and in the age of tribalism and social media, there’s seemingly no way to leave a club on good terms, no matter what you’ve given to the team over the years.
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