England's Gareth Southgate reacts to Jack Grealish, Manchester City celebrations

"There is a line," Southgate said ahead of England's European Championship qualifier at Malta on Friday, per Jacob Steinberg of The Guardian. "But in our head, we weren’t thinking of including the City players for this game. We’ve been through this scenario three or four times in the last few years with our players leading into games."

City claimed the 2022-23 English Premier League title, defeated rivals Manchester United to win the FA Cup and then beat Inter Milan 1-0 in the UEFA Champions League final last Saturday to become just the second English club to complete such a treble. United first accomplished the feat in 1999.

As noted by chief football writer Sam Wallace of The Telegraph and others, Grealish has routinely generated headlines with his partying ways since City's victory in Istanbul. While Grealish was always unlikely to feature for England so soon after club football's biggest final, Southgate indicated he's fine with alleged over-the-top celebrations as long as they don't get too out of hand. 

"I have spoken with the players," Southgate explained, per Sky Sports News. "We have talked about where the focus needs to be, where we need them to be and acknowledged what they have experienced and that's for me to manage." 

Southgate continued: 

"It's a huge occasion and we needed to give those guys the time to take everything in but, point number one, they all wanted to come in to be with the group, which is fantastic. I don't think they would have felt anything unusual about how we have dealt with this and how we have embraced the players back into the group." 

Some, such as chief football writer Henry Winter of The Times, have defended Grealish for actions labeled excessive by others: 

As the saying goes: To the victor go the spoils.