Martin Keown has told Football Focus that Jack Grealish looks much ‘fitter’ this season and there was one point against Leeds were they couldn’t stop him.
The BBC pundit was making reference to Grealish’s solo run in the second half, which came from deep inside his own area, and he thinks it was the ‘defining moment’ of the game.
At that stage, it was goalless between the two, but Leeds ended up going down the other end and scoring through Patrick Bamford, who netted a hat-trick on the night.
It was a quite incredible solo run from Grealish and Keown shared the strength the Villa man showed, including praising Leeds’ man between the sticks for how he dealt with the situation.
“He uses his body very well and he is very strong [on his solo run],” Keown told Football Focus.”I feel he is fitter now as well.
“He slows his opponent down and he knows where he wants to go [cut onto his right] and you cannot stop him.
“But, in the end, this goalkeeper [Meslier. This young kid, this French player, he is fantastic. He just stands up brilliantly. And that was the defining moment of the game. If they had scored at that point then it could have been different.”
It was a proper ding-dong battle at Villa Park on Friday night, as both teams played some seriously good football, only for Dean Smith’s side to be blown away for 40 minutes of the second half.
Throughout the game, Leeds played with a tempo not many opposition teams can deal with, and whilst others will be surprised by it when they face Marcelo Bielsa’s side, it shouldn’t have been a surprise for those in Claret and Blue.
The reason is quite simple because both Villa and Smith have faced this gung-ho, non-stop and in-your-face Leeds team in the Championship, so they knew exactly what was coming at them but just couldn’t deal with it on the day.
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