Grimes: Matthew Jacob (Matt)

2016-2017 (Leeds Player Details) (Player Details)

Midfield

Born: Exeter, Devon: 15-07-1995

Debut: Queens Park Rangers (a): 07-08-2016

5' 10" 11st 3lb (2016)

The Exeter born Grimes remained with his local club throughout his early years, but started with Westexe under-sevens and then the Stoke Hill under-nines and as far back as 2004 his early promise was on display as one of 1,500 children that took part in a six-a-side tournament organised by Twyford Spartans when his team, Stoke Hill were unlucky to lose the final to Purion District. He graduated through the Exeter City Academy and he and goalkeeper Christy Pym were both handed professional contracts on the same day in early April 2013. By then Grimes was already the captain of the Exeter City Under-Eighteen team and Pym had already sat on the bench for the first team. Grimes made his debut for Exeter City in Division Two, when he started the game on 17th August 2013 as they won 2-0 at home to AFC Wimbledon, with Grimes playing the full game in Central Midfield. He went on to play thirty-five League games that season and scoring once, his first goal for the club, in the eighteenth minute of a 1-1 draw at Chesterfield on 18th April 2014, when he opened the scoring. He started in twenty-three of the League games and twelve were as a substitute and he also sat unused on the bench on a further six occasions. He was a regular from the start! In February 2014, the Exeter Manager, Peter Tisdale described him as the best young player he had seen at the club in his eight years there, praising his technical ability and reading of the game. He went on to win the Exeter City player of the year at the end of the season. On 2nd July 2014, the Eighteen-year-old Grimes made it known that he was happy at Exeter and would be there for the year. He went on to start twenty-two League games and came off the bench once in the first half of the 2014-15 season. He had also started scoring goals on a more regular basis, with four in the period. His first of the season came in a 1-2 home defeat by Mansfield Town on 6th Setember 2014, when, after coming on as a half-time substitute for Pat Baldwin, he scored the Exeter goal in the sixty-seventh minute to reduce the arrears. His second was on 27th September 2014 in a 2-1 home win over Bury, when he opened the scoring in the fifth minute. His third came on 28th November 2014 in a 3-2 win at Accrington Stanley when he scored in the sixty-ninth minute to give Exeter a 3-1 lead, and his fourth came on 13th December 2014 in a 2-0 home win over Carlisle United when he made the score 2-0 with one minute left on the clock. Exeter could not afford to keep the young starlet and when Swansea City approached them in January 2015 with an offer they accepted the undisclosed amount, which was thought to be in the £1.75 million region. On 2nd January 2015 he signed a four and a half-year contract with the Swans. He had scored five League goals in forty-five starts and thirteen games from the benchand also started two F.A. Cup ties, onr League Cup tie and came off the bench in one Johnstone's Paint Trophy game for the team he had joined as a ten-year-old. While he did not play any games in League Two after Christmas 2014, he was still elected into the PFA League's Team of the Year for the 2014-15 season. He had already been capped three times by the England Under-Twenty team. He made his debut in a 6-0 win over Romania Under- Nineteens at New Bucks Head, Wellington, Telford, when he came on as a substitute for Rolando Aarons of Newcastle United after seventy-nine minutes, on 5th September 2014. He made his starting debut on 9th October 2014 in a 1-0 win over Germany Under-Twenties at Sportpark Skoatterwald, Harenveen, playing a full game, and followed this up with his third cap in a 2-2 draw with Canada Under-Twenties at Dean Court Bournemouth, when he again played the full match on 12th November 2014. He did not play a full game for his new club in the 2014-15 season, in fact he never started one game for them, but he did make three substitute appearances and sat unused on the bench on six other occasions as he was brought into the team gradually. He made his debut on 4th April 2015, when he replaced Jonjo Shelvey in the final minute of a 3-1 home win over Hull City. On 25th April 2015 he played twenty-one minutes in a 3-2 win at Newcastle United, when he came on for the injured Jefferson Montero after sixty-nine minute and on 24th May 2015 he played twenty minutes in a 1-0 loss at Crystal Palace, when he replaced Leon Britton in the seventieth minute. He also added four more caps to his England Under-Twenties collection. On 25th March 2015 he came on in the sixty-ninth minute to replace Ben Osborn of Nottingham Forest in a 1-1 draw , after extra-time with Mexico Under-Twenties at the Hive Stadium in Edgeware. The game went to penalties and he scored England's fourth penalty as they won 4-2. On 29th March 2015 he started the 2-1 win over USA at Home Park, Plymouth and captained the side as he played a full game. He played a full game of eighty minutes on 28th May 2015 in a 3-3 draw with Morocco Under-Twenty-Threes at Stade Leo Lagrange, Besancon, France and two days later he was again captain and played a full game at the same venue as Ivory Coast Under-Twenty-Threes were beaten 2-1. The 2015-16 season saw him add six more caps to his Under-Twenty collection to thirteen as he was again captain on 3rd June 2015 in the Toulon Youth competition, playing a full game in a 1-2 loss to the Mexico Under-Twenty- Two side at Stade de Lattre-de-Tassigny in Aubagne, France. He was then on the bench two days later as China Under-Twenty-three were beaten 3-1 at Stade Leo Lagrange, Besancon, France, but he was back as captain at the Mayol Stadium in Toulon, two days later, playing a full game as they went down to USA Under-Twenty-Threes 1-2. There were then three friendlies in Germany as he was captain in the first, on 7th October 2015, in a 3-1 victory over Netherlands Under-Twenties at the Voith-Arena Heidenheim, when he played a full game. He started on the bench in the second game at the Donaustadion in Ulm, three days later, when he replaced Bryn Morris of Middlesbrough after seventy-four minutes, and he started again as captain at the Voith-Arena, Heidenheim, in a 0-1 loss to Germany on 13th October 2015 but gave way to Bryn Morris after seventy-eight minutes. His final game for the England-Under-Twenties was on 11th November 2015 at the Stade Fred Aubert, Saint-Brieuc, France, in a 3-4 defeat by France Under-Twenties, in which he scored the opening goal in the fourth minute, but was replaced in the eighty-first minute by Bryn Morris. He then went on to represent England at Under-Twenty-One level, making his debut as a substitute in the 1-1 away draw with Switzerland at the Stockhorn Arena in Thun, on 26th March 2016, when he came on as a seventieth minute substitute for Ruben Loftus-Cheek of Chelsea. His second game was a brief affair in the Toulon Youth competition, when he came on in the final minute for Lewis Baker of Vitesse, in a 1-0 win over Portugal Under-Twenties at Stade Leo Lagrange, Besancon, on 19th May 2016. Four days later he made his starting debut at Stade de Lattre-de-Tassigny in Aubagne, in a 7-1 win over Guinea Under-Twenty-threes, in which he played a full game. Two days later he remained on the bench as Portugal Under-Twenties were beaten 4-0 at Stade Antoine Baptiste, Six-Fours, Toulon. On 27th May 2015 he took his Under-Twenty-One caps to four, in a 1-0 win over Japan Under- Twenty-Threes at Stade Leo Lagrange, Besancon. and played a full game, but two days later he was on the bench in a 2-1 victory over France Under-Twenties at Parc des Sports in Avignon. His progress with Swansea was not quite as spectacular, but he was blooded in the first team in the EPL, in the period from late November through to the New Year, when he was on the bench as an unused substitute, three times and made his League debut in a 0-0 draw at Crystal Palace on 28th December 2015, in which he played a full game. He had started off in the Swansea City Under-Twenty-One side, but only played twice for them, starting in a 0-3 loss at West Bromwich Albion on 14th December 2015 and a 2-1 win at West Ham United on 10th February 2016, but had made a starting debut for the first team in a 3-0 win in the League Cup on 25th August 2015 and had marked this by scoring his sides second goal in the sixty-fourth minute, before being replaced by Marvin Emnes in the seventy-sixth minute. He went on to also start a second game in the same competition in a 0-1 loss at Hull City on 22nd September 2015, when he was replaced by Jonjo Shelvey in the fifty-seventh minute. He also started in the Third Round F.A. Cup tie on 10th January 2016 in a 2-3 defeat at Oxford United, but was replaced by Modou Barrow in the seventy-sixth minute. On 15th February 2016 he was loaned to Championship side Blackburn Rovers, to gain game time, for the three months to the end of the season. The next day he sat unused on the bench as his new club won 3-0 at home to Fulham. He made his starting debut for them on 24th February 2016 and played sixty-nine minutes before being replaced by Chris Brown. He went on to start nine and come off the bench four times, as well as being unused on three more occasions, as both the Ewood Park club and Swansea City were happy with his contributions and increased experience. He had also started once in the League for the Swans, made three appearances from the bench in the same competition, as well as scoring once in two starts in the League Cup and starting one F.A. Cup tie. On 7th July 2016, he became Leeds United's fifth summer signing, on a season-long loan. He followed Swansea City team-mate Kyle Bartley in making the switch to Elland Road and immediately joined United’s pre-season training camp in Ireland after signing. “It’s a great feeling,” Grimes told the Leeds Website. “This was a no-brainer for me – it's such a big club and we’re looking to have a really strong season. “I’m really excited to come here and play football – that’s the aim for me this season. Coming here gives me a really good chance to do that at a high level. “Garry Monk and Pep Clotet were really good to me when I was at Swansea. They helped me a lot and nurtured me when I was a young player coming through, so it will be great to work with them again. “I’m really looking forward to getting going. I can’t wait to get to Ireland, start training and get some games under my belt – which is what pre-season is all about.” Grimes was originally taken to Swansea City by new Leeds United boss Garry Monk in January 2015 after catching the eye with hometown club Exeter City. He went on the pre-season tour of Ireland and came on as a replacement after sixty minutes in the 2-1 win over Shelbourne at Tolka Park on 13th July 2016 and then started in the second match three days later in a 3-0 win over Shamrock Rovers at Tallaght Park, when he played the first sixty minutes. A week later he was included for a full game as United were beaten by 1-2 by Peterborough United at London Road. He was a sixty-second minute substitute for Tomani Daigouraga in United's final pre-season friendly in a 2-1 win over Atalanta of the Italian Serie A at Elland Road on 30th July 2016. He made his League debut in the opening match of the season in a 0-3 defeat at Loftus Road by Queens Park Rangers on 7th August 2016, when he was replaced by Marcus Antonsson in the sixty-first minute. He was an unused substitute in the League Cup win at Fleetwood Town on 10th August 2016 and in the 1-2 home loss to Birmingham City three days later, but was not in the squad on 16th August 2016 in the 1-1 home draw with Fulham nor the 2-0 win at Sheffield Wednesday four days later. He was back to play a full game in the 1-0 League Cup victory at Luton Town, when United played a much under-strength side on 23rd August 2016 and when he was omitted from the team in a 1-3 defeat at Nottingham Forest, it was obvious that he was not in the top four for the two attacking midfield spots. His debut was the only start he made for United in the League, but there were six more substitute appearances and he started both F.A. Cup ties, when United played under-strength teams and similarly he started two and came off the bench once in the early League Cup games. He duly returned to Swansea City and, on 18th August 2017 was loaned to Northampton Town for the 2017-18 season. He made his debut as a fifty-seventh minute substitute for Yaser Kasim in the 1-4 defeat at Charlton Athletic the following day and a week later he made his starting debut in a 1-4 home defeat by Peterborough United and followed it up by another full game as the club advanced on penalties in the Football League Trophy on 29th August 2017.