Roy Keane makes Tom Daley dig at Jack Grealish in Man City vs Villa

Manchester City v Aston Villa in pictures

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Manchester City star Jack Grealish was compared to Olympic diver Tom Daley by Manchester United icon Roy Keane after the England star won his side a penalty in their first-half rout of Aston Villa on Saturday. Jacob Ramsey was adjudged to have fouled Grealish, but Keane felt that the ex-Villa star was “clever” in winning the spot kick, which Riyad Mahrez tucked past Emiliano Martinez.

Grealish raced onto the ball inside the Villa penalty area and got ahead of Ramsey before their legs tangled and Grealish fell to the floor in protest, before the referee pointed to the spot. There was a discussion between the City players over who would take the penalty, but Mahrez won the debate over Erling Haaland and finished past the Argentine stopper for City’s third of the opening 45 minutes.

At half-time, Keane praised Grealish but made a dig at him for winning the foul by comparing him to the Olympic gold medalist. “Yeah, you have to give a penalty, it’s just Jack being very smart,” Keane told Sky Sports.

“Very naive defending from Ramsey, he does kind of catch him but Jack kind of kicks himself more than anything else. We’re saying Jack is more like Tom Daley, but I think it is a penalty, and it’s clever from Jack. He gets his body across and like Gary [Neville] said in commentary, he knows exactly what he’s doing, gave the referee almost no option but to give the penalty.”

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The penalty came after Rodri had headed Pep Guardiola’s outfit into the lead minutes into the game, after their fans booed the Premier League anthem prior to kick-off after the club were charged over 100 alleged breaches of Financial Fair Play rules regarding a nine-year period.

Ilkay Gundogan doubled the hosts’ lead as Haaland latched onto Kevin De Bruyne’s long ball and after a mix-up between Calum Chambers and Martinez, Haaland played the ball across for the German midfielder to tap home.

Haaland had been expected to take the penalty that Grealish won, but after a discussion between himself, Mahrez, Gundogan and Ruben Dias it was decided that Mahrez would reclaim penalty taking duties.

“I know we’ve seen this with City before, I don’t like to see it,” Keane added. “But Gundogan is obviously captain, comes in and gets involved. There’s some sort of discussion, of course I’ve said we’ve seen this before with City, but the most important thing is they scored the penalty – 3-0, game over.”

Former City defender Micah Richards added: “He had the confidence, didn’t he? We all expected Haaland to step up because he’s so good from the spot, but Mahrez took responsibility.”

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