TWO young and highly talented footballers have spent the past few days in the news, not for their actions on the pitch, but because of what they have been getting up to on their holidays.

This is, of course, nothing new. In an age where Cristiano Ronaldo’s choice of swimming trunks somehow attracts blanket coverage, footballers have to realise that they will be in the spotlight at all times.

But should Aston Villa or the FA really be taking any action against Jack Grealish? In case you missed it, photos emerged earlier this week appearing to show the teenager passed out in the street at the end of a night out in Tenerife.

Obviously, drinking so much that you fall asleep in the street isn’t great. For a start, I’m sure Grealish is incredibly embarrassed, having to explain his behaviour to his parents and his girlfriend.

More seriously, had a car come along being driven by a distracted driver, we could have been looking at a tragedy, not to mention the fact that if Grealish wasn’t robbed, he should consider himself pretty lucky.

However, let’s put this in perspective. Grealish is a 19-year-old kid on a lads’ trip abroad. In terms of things that he could have done to hit the news, falling asleep on the road seems pretty tame. As far as we know, nobody got hurt and no illegal substances were consumed, so aren’t we blowing this way out of proportion?

Put it another way. Many of you reading this will have been on similar holidays, or stag/hen parties. You may not have ended up in the state Grealish found himself in, but there will be times when you either had to be helped home or helped a drunk friend to get back to their hotel.

The fact that Grealish ended up in that situation probably means that he should have a think about his choice of friends. One of the golden rules of such holidays is never to leave anyone alone.

Beyond that, let’s not get carried away. While I’d not describe it as normal behaviour, it’s something that happens. After this week, it’s unlikely Grealish will let it happen to him again, so lesson learned. Let’s move on.

The case of Raheem Sterling is rather more complicated, but again I worry about the company he is keeping.

This isn’t a new concern, but for the second time he has been pictured taking the ‘legal high’ nitrous oxide. Not great when he’s trying to engineer a move away from Liverpool, but what must be equally concerning is that the footage appears to be taken on a yacht, meaning one of his ‘friends’ has probably sold him out.

Sterling has form for this kind of stuff. He got in trouble for taking ‘laughing gas’ earlier this year, but doesn’t appear to be learning.

It has to be said that the health risks of inhaling the gas are probably less than getting so drunk you pass out on the street, but the worry is that Sterling doesn’t appear to be changing his ways. I hope Grealish doesn’t slip down the same path.

Basingstoke Gazette:

THE group stages of the Women’s World Cup have drawn to a close, with the tournament raising strong opinions.

A lot of people simply cannot get interested in women’s football in general, with some defenders of the sport suggesting that this is down to sexism.

That’s an easy argument to make and while it may have some merit, I know several people who have tried to watch games and decided that it’s not for them. To my mind, there’s no reason why anyone should have a problem with that.

So far, I have heard two main arguments against the sport.

Firstly, when compared to men’s football, it lacks pace and excitement.

In some cases, this may be true. I watched England’s opening game against France and was very much underwhelmed.

It was a pretty terrible game, played at a pedestrian pace, but let’s be honest, you get plenty of bad games in the Premier League.

On Wednesday night, England beat Colombia 2-1 to progress to the last 16. In the first half, England were excellent and it was very entertaining. After the break, it quietened down a bit, but again, that’s football.

It’s easy to watch 10 minutes of a bad game and assume that women’s football is always slow and boring. What the game really needs is more television time, so people also see the good games, and that is what the World Cup is offering.

In terms of the quality of goalkeeping, the critics have a point, but is it really fair to expect female goalkeepers to be as good as men?

That may sound sexist, but let’s look at statistics. The average height of a British man aged between 25 and 34 is 5ft 10in, while the average woman of the same age is 5ft 5in.

The goal is 8ft high and while goalkeepers are generally above the average height, the same is true of both sexes. England’s goalkeeper at the Women’s World Cup, Karen Bardsley, is just under 6ft tall. Joe Hart is 5in taller, while Shay Given, generally accepted to be a small goalkeeper, is taller than her.

When you look at it like that, it makes for an unfair comparison and I wonder if any consideration has been given to making women’s goals smaller. When female athletes run over hurdles, they are not expected to jump the same obstacles as men, so why are female footballers expected to defend the same size goals as their male counterparts?