Pep Guardiola issues response to recent media coverage of Jack Grealish | OneFootball

Manchester City manager Pep Guardiola has issued his response to recent coverage in certain quarters of the British media on Jack Grealish’s off-the-pitch antics.

The 29-year-old forward has endured a difficult season on a personal note to date so far this campaign, suffering from various injury and fitness problems and as such struggling to break into the starting picture for Pep Guardiola.

The manager has consistently pointed out during the second-half of the campaign in particular that given the form of Savinho and Jeremy Doku in particular, he has no other choice but to start the Brazilian and Belgian forwards when available.

As such, Grealish is left with a fight on his hands to prove his quality and worth to Guardiola in training and whenever granted an opportunity, which most recently came in the FA Cup fifth round win over Plymouth Argyle.

But since then, media coverage of the England international’s private life has been far from clean, with one newspaper surfacing video footage of the Manchester City forward appearing to be drunk in the north-east while visiting friends in the Newcastle and Sunderland region.

Now, speaking during his latest press conference ahead of Manchester City’s meeting with Nottingham Forest at the City Ground on Saturday afternoon, Pep Guardiola was quizzed for his thoughts on Grealish’s recent coverage in the British media.

“He’s so famous! People follow him, yeah,” Guardiola insisted on his number 10. “Nothing to comment,” he closed.

Coverage of Grealish’s off-the-pitch activities come amid a longer week of rest without midweek competitive action for Manchester City, having already been knocked out of the UEFA Champions League in the play-off round for a last-16 place by Real Madrid.

When asked for how he has handled the additional rest available to him and his squad, Guardiola responded, “If we win, it will be a benefit. If we don’t, it won’t be good.”

He continued, “We have more time to rest, train more, it’s fine! Less meetings than ever, just training. You do meetings when you can’t train. When you train, you don’t need to do meetings.”

Given the quality of performances put on show by the likes of Jeremy Doku, Omar Marmoush, and Savinho, it is difficult to see a scenario where Pep Guardiola turns towards Jack Grealish for the biggest of games at present.

And such big games continue this weekend with the Premier League champions taking on the side one place above them within the top-four, Nottingham Forest away at the City Ground – a huge clash for either side’s hopes of a UEFA Champions League place for next season.

Grealish has continued to train as normal throughout the course of the ongoing week, making himself ready and available for selection by Pep Guardiola, should the City coach want to take on a more patient and controlled approach in attack against Nuno Espirito Santo’s side.