Aston Villa manager Steven Gerrard has sent a message to Leeds United youngster Archie Gray following the tackle on him from midfielder John McGinn, as relayed by The Yorkshire Evening Post journalist Graham Smyth.
Leeds and Villa faced each other in a pre-season friendly match this morning.
Jesse Marsch’s side lost the match 1-0 to Premier League rivals Villa in Brisbane.
It was an action-packed game in which Leeds prospect Gray was stretchered off.
Villa and Scotland international midfielder McGinn made a tackle on the teenager, who suffered an ankle injury.
The 16-year-old midfielder was in a lot of pain and had to be substituted immediately.
Gray was actually booked two minutes prior to his injury for his strong tackle on Villa attacking midfielder Emiliano Buendia.
Villa manager Gerrard and Leeds boss Marsch have commented on the incident, as you can read below.
Steven Gerrard and Jesse Marsch on Leeds United’s Archie Gray
Marsch said, as quoted in Leeds Live: “We’re hopeful that it’s not too bad. He was in some pain initialy but we’re hopeful nothing is broken. Hopefully it’s an ankle sprain and we’ll see the severity of it in the next couple of days.”
Leeds Live quotes Gerrard as saying: “We wish the young kid well. John got the ball but he’s been unlucky on the follow through. In the main it was played in the right way.”
We wish Archie Gray the best of luck and hope that the injury suffered by the Leeds prospect is not serious.
It is never nice to see a player suffer a bad injury, especially one who is only 16 and that too in a pre-season friendly.
This was only a pre-season match, and even though Leeds and Villa are rivals in the Premier League, perhaps the players on both teams should not have been gone for it like they did throughout the 90 minutes.
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