Jack Grealish didn’t take a penalty for England in Sunday’s shootout defeat to Italy – and pundit Gary Neville thinks there is ‘obviously something wrong’ for him.
The Three Lions dragged themselves to penalties in the Euro 2020 final, with Leonardo Bonucci cancelling out Luke Shaw’s early opener.
England ended up losing on penalties, with Marcus Rashford hitting the post before Gianluigi Donnarumma saved from both Jadon Sancho and Bukayo Saka.
Italy celebrated success at Wembley, and the inquest over the penalties has begun.
Many are questioning why Rashford and Sancho took penalties having been on the pitch for mere seconds. Plenty of fans really don’t understand why Saka was taking one at the age of just 19.
They all had the guts to take one but sadly couldn’t find the net, and the focus has been shifted to looking at those who didn’t take one.
Raheem Sterling and Jack Grealish were notable players who didn’t take a penalty in the first five, and many have been left shocked by them not stepping forward.
Pundit Gary Neville told ITV’s coverage (11/07, 11:29pm) that there is ‘obviously something wrong’ with Grealish in terms of his penalty taking, because he hasn’t taken one for two years now with Aston Villa.
“When we saw Saka walk up, we expected to see probably Grealish or Sterling go up first before him, but they will have looked at who missed when, who has taken one,” said Neville. “You touched on a stat there about Jack Grealish, he hasn’t taken one for two seasons – so there’s obviously something wrong there in terms of his penalty taking,” he added.
Grealish has hit back at his critics today, taking to Twitter to claim that he did put himself forward for a penalty but boss Gareth Southgate ultimately chose the five himself.
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