FA Cup final: Spotlight on Jack Grealish’s performance

IMPACT

He tried to keep a cool head as Villa never got a foothold in the game, but was given a lesson by

Santi Cazorla

and Mesut Özil. There were shades of Villa’s last FA Cup final defeat against Chelsea in 2000, when the players were accused of not turning up. The teenager looked to shrink towards the end, with Arsenal coasting to victory, but should not carry the can alone with his team-mates left wanting too.

LINK-UP PLAY

Grealish started on the left with a remit to wander inside but, with Villa on the back foot for so much of the first half, he was barely able to make a dent.

Christian Benteke

was starved of service for the majority of the game as the supply line was cut off at the source. Even when Benteke was winning the headers, Grealish did not seem to be on the same wavelength as he failed to make the same impact as in the semi-final.

END PRODUCT

Needs to add goals to his game and, while his end product is improving, he is yet to score for Villa. He never came close to opening his account in dream fashion at Wembley, with

Wojciech Szczesny

hardly troubled by any of the Villa forwards. The closest he came to breaching the Arsenal back line was when he tricked his way past Per Mertesacker and felt he should have had a penalty when he was tugged back with just minutes left.

OVERALL

There was never any threat of a repeat of his semi-final heroics, when he almost ran the show against Liverpool and laid on Fabian Delph’s winner in April. It will have been a painful experience for the boyhood Villa fan. But at only 19 he still has a long way to go in his career and will only benefit from the experience and the hurt which a final defeat will cause. The club believe he will only improve and Sherwood has faith in the youngster, so he should not be judged too harshly as more experienced team-mates also failed to impress.