Jack Grealish has hit back at Roy Keane after he accused the England midfielder of not wanting to take a penalty during the Euro 2020 final shootout.
The Aston Villa star had been used sparingly by Southgate before the tournament, but was eligible to take a spot kick having been introduced as a substitute at Wembley against Italy.
Despite his seniority in terms of age, Grealish was not in England’s first five penalty takers and it was left to the likes of Jadon Sancho and Bukayo Saka to try and hold their nerves from the spot.
Ultimately, that duo, along with Marcus Rashford, failed to score under the pressure and Keane accused Grealish and Raheem Sterling of shirking their responsibilities as a senior player.
He said: ‘If you’re Sterling or Grealish you cannot sit there and have a young kid walk up ahead of you.
‘You can’t sit there and see a young kid, 19, a child walk up in front of me when I’ve played a lot more games, and got a lot more experience.’
Grealish, however, says he did want to take a penalty, but the decision on who would take the first five spot kicks was made by England manager Gareth Southgate.
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He wrote on Twitter: ‘I said I wanted to take one!!!! The gaffer has made so many right decisions through this tournament and he did tonight!
‘But I won’t have people say that I didn’t want to take a peno when I said I will.’
Southgate, meanwhile, accepted the blame for Saka’s miss saying he made his mind up on who would take penalties based on how the player’s performances in training.
He said: ‘That is down to me, I decided on the penalty takers based on what they have done in training and nobody is on their own.
‘We have won together as a team and it is on all of us together to not be able to win the game tonight and in terms of penalties it is my call and it totally rests with me.’
