Match of the Day pundit Micah Richards 'devastated' to see Luton's on-loan Villa keeper Steer injured again but praises 'absolutely brilliant' Isted

Match of the Day pundit Micah Richards was gutted to see his former team-mate Jed Steer suffer yet another Achilles injury during last night’s FA Cup between Luton and Chelsea at Kenilworth Road, the visitors eventually going through 3-2.

The ex-Manchester City and England defender was at Steer's parent club Aston Villa between 2015-19, when the stopper suffered two similar problems that saw him sidelined in 2016 and also 2019.

It cruelly happened again after just 14 minutes of the fifth round tie yesterday, the 29-year-old falling to the floor unchallenged when coming out for a ball over the top, and was stretchered off in some pain.

With the game broadcast live on BBC One, speaking at half time, Richards said: "It was devastating as it's always a worry when a keeper goes down with no-one around him.

"I feared it would be a recurrence of his Achilles, but it does look really bad and he's such a great lad.

"He worked so hard in getting back into the team, he got back into the Villa team, comes on loan to get some games, hopefully he'll be okay."

On in his place came Isted, who drew real praise from both Richards and fellow pundit Alan Shearer though as he made some magnificent stops from Saul Niguez, Kenedy and Romelu Lukaku in the first half alone.

Richards said: "The keeper has come on and he was absolutely brilliant.

“These players are live on TV and we don't know a lot of these players, so to get these opportunities it's brilliant."

When going through the highlights of the opening 45 minutes, former Newcastle and England striker Shearer added: "Very good goalkeeping we have to say by Harry Isted who came on because of the injury to Jed Steer.

"It was incredible goalkeeping, that (stop from Lukaku) is a brilliant save."