Former England striker Michael Owen has paid credit to Leeds United winger Ian Poveda for refusing to go down in an attempt to win his side a penalty during Saturday night's 3-1 defeat to Chelsea at Stamford Bridge.
With 10 minutes of the contest in west London remaining, and Leeds, who had taken an early lead through Patrick Bamford, trailing 2-1, Poveda jinked his way into the penalty area, shrugged off the attentions of Blues left-back Ben Chilwell and fired an effort straight into the arms of goalkeeper Edouard Mendy.
However, replays showed that Chilwell, who has excelled at Stamford Bridge this season following his summer move from Leicester City, caught Poveda as he looked to unleash his effort. Had the former Manchester City youngster gone to ground, VAR may have intervened and thought about the prospect of handing Leeds a penalty and a route back into the contest.
Poveda, though, elected to stay on his own two feet, drawing praise from former Liverpool and Real Madrid ace Owen, although he did question whether or not his honesty had denied Marcelo Bielsa's side the prospect of returning to west Yorkshire with a point in the bag.
"[He is a] very honest player," Owen told Premier League Productions. “The manager in the dressing room would be thinking ’I have just watched Mo Salah, I have watched people like Grealish, Danny Welbeck last week. I have watched all these players, Sterling today, they have got half the touch you [Poveda] have got’.
"That is as much if not more than I have seen in the past couple of weeks times five. Honesty gets you nowhere and it cannot be like that.
"I admire the lad for staying on his feet and I think he should stay on his feet. And I don’t think you should be given a penalty for that.
"I do think we need to get rid of this tiny little touch and someone going down. Every single week – We need to rid ourself of this.
“I admire that. I really admire it. He got a big touch. He could have gone down. Probably cost his team a point because that would have made it 2-2 with not that long to go.
"But he’s being honest and it does Leeds no favours.”
Poveda had stepped off the bench just before the hour mark, replacing Jack Harrison, as Bielsa, with the scores level at 1-1 at the time, looking to come up with a plan that could have won his side the contest.
