Over the last couple of weeks, Manchester City’s Jack Grealish has been in the news for his experiences on the sidelines than when he has come onto the pitch. During City’s Champions League Quarter-Final games against Atletico Madrid, Grealish was heavily targeted by Simeone’s men in an attempt to rile up the player into receiving a booking.
Across both the legs, Atletico’s Stefan Savic was spotted trying to get into Grealish’s face and was spotted pulling the Englishman’s hair numerous times. The City winger even took to Instagram to talk about Atletico’s weird tactic at enraging him.
A week since the confrontations in Madrid, it looks like Grealish has once again been at the centre of another incident, this time with a more familiar rival.
Ever since his Aston Villa days in the Championship, Grealish has enjoyed a fierce rivalry with Leeds United supporters. With Villa and Leeds securing promotion in consecutive seasons, this fiery relationship carried onto the Premier League whenever the two sides met.
When the two sides met at Elland Road last season, Grealish was unable to play due to an injury. But as Villa walked out 1-0 victors on the night, the Englishman did not hesitate to rub salt into the wounds of Leeds supporters as he took to Twitter to comment “Ahhh what a time to be alive,” accompanied by several laughing emojis. Grealish’s tweet was immediately flooded by angry replies from Leeds fans who were far from pleased with the Villa captain’s behaviour.
Fast forward to Saturday’s game between Man City and Leeds, Grealish rekindled his rivalry with the supporters in white at Elland Road.
Throughout the game, many City players were targeted by Leeds fans who hurled abuses and trash objects at those on the field in large numbers.
During one instance, when Grealish was next to an already littered corner flag, as soon as the ball went out of play numerous projectiles were aimed at the Englishman with some of them even hitting the player in the face.
Then as Grealish prepared to take the resulting corner, he was once again hounded by objects thrown by the Leeds support, with even minor fans hurling paper balls at the player while the security detail at the stadium stood watching the entire episode.
This is hilarious at Leeds. Glad @JackGrealish is having fun with it. Look at the little kids hurling paper balls right in front of the so-called security. pic.twitter.com/iO2uJU7FnX
Grealish did not look one bit flustered with the treatment accorded to him and was spotted smiling at the Leeds fans and seemed to be loving the hostile atmosphere.
The City man ultimately had the last laugh as City walked out 4-0 victors on the evening while Grealish also took to Instagram to take shots at Leeds fans.
His latest Instagram post contains an image of him celebrating Nathan Ake’s goal along with the caption, “Offft what a win from the box of toys! Always nice to win at Elland Road, on to a big game Wednesday 💙.”
As Leeds continues to struggle to prevent slipping into the relegation zone, Grealish would be hoping that the club stay up this season so that he can continue his personal rivalry with Leeds fans next season as well.
