Danny Higginbotham believes Aston Villa’s Jack Grealish should take being constantly fouled as a ‘compliment’

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Aston Villa will make the short trip to St Andrew’s to take on their bitter rivals Birmingham City on Sunday.

Sky Sports pundit Danny Higginbotham has urged the Championship’s most fouled player, Jack Grealish to ‘take it as a compliment’ ahead of Aston Villa’s clash against Birmingham City on Sunday.

Dean Smith’s side, who won the reverse fixture 4-2 with Grealish getting on the scoresheet, will make the short trip to St Andrew’s where they will be hoping to do the double over their neighbours.

According to WhoScored, Grealish is the most fouled player in the second tier of English football. He has been fouled on 105 occasions this term, 18 more times than any other player added with the fact that he has also missed a number of months through injury.

Speaking to Match Centre on Sky Sports News (07/03/2019 at 11:25 am), Higginbotham stated that the opposition are fearful of the Villa playmaker and he should see being fouled as a good thing.

“There will be no doubt about that [Birmingham targeting Grealish],” Higginbotham told Match Centre. “You got to take it as a compliment. The one thing that when he is being fouled so often, a number of players go around him to stop him.

“He is not then afraid of getting back up on the ball. But the beauty of it is when you go to try and stop a player like that because there are three players around him. He has got the two central midfielders and the centre back comes out, so all of a sudden he creates space in behind him because you are fearful of a player like Grealish.”

Last Saturday, Grealish, who had been on the sidelines since December, helped his team to a thumping 4-0 win over Derby County by scoring a sublime volley in the game.

It was a timely three points for Smith’s side, who had won on only two occasions without their star man as they will be looking to make it back-to-back wins at the weekend.

During the reverse fixture, Villa put four past Garry Monk’s men, with Grealish scoring his side’s second goal and Alan Hutton netting a sublime solo effort in the second half.