Aston Villa’s Jack Grealish has hit back at Roy Keane, who criticised the England man for seemingly allowing Bukayo Saka to take a penalty ahead of him at the final of Euro 2020 last night.
The Villa playmaker posted on Twitter that he wanted to take a penalty and he ‘won’t have people say he didn’t want to take a peno’, as England suffered a cruel defeat at the hands of Italy.
Keane, working as a pundit for ITV, slammed the likes of Grealish and Raheem Sterling for allowing the Arsenal teenager to take a penalty ahead of them.
Saka took England’s fifth penalty of the night, which was saved, and it handed Italy the European Championship.
Before then, both of England’s extra-time substitutes – Marcus Rashford and Jadon Sancho – also suffered the same penalty heartache as Saka, after Harry Kane and Harry Maguire had scored.
This is what Grealish posted on Twitter in regards to Keane’s comments, which were relayed by Sky Sports:
It does seem as though Grealish was next in line to take a spot-kick, but the game was over before he could step up.
The Villa man has shown courage and taken a shootout penalty kick before – when his boyhood club beat West Brom in the Championship play-off semi-finals.
Plus, just before the penalties were taken, the cameras did pan to Gareth Southgate, with a notepad in hand, and he was seemingly asking Saka and Grealish if they wanted to take a penalty, with both players nodding.
Given that Grealish has to come out and defend himself like this is pretty ridiculous because this was clearly a Southgate call that backfired.
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