Aston Villa ace Jack Grealish has taken to Twitter to post a message after some fans accused him of bottling the decision to take a penalty during England’s defeat on penalties to Italy in the final of the European Championships last night.

Pundits and fans alike queried why Grealish – a senior professional now – allowed Bukayo Saka to take the fifth spot-kick last night.

Raheem Sterling got the same treatment.

However, the Villa star has come out punching this morning.

Jack Grealish posts tweet in response to bottle job claims

Gareth Southgate picked his five penalty takers. Grealish’s tweet this morning proves that:

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… https://t.co/3mBpKyMoUV

— Jack Grealish (@JackGrealish) July 12, 2021

The tweet was in direct response two Roy Keane’s claim on ITV that Grealish should have taken a penalty ahead of Saka last night.

At the time, it did seem strange because the Villa ace is a supremely confident young man.

And now it is clear that he actually wanted to take a spot-kick last night.

It was a very poor decision from Gareth Southgate. How different things could have been.

Read also: Villa walk away from £20 million deal.