Barkley on his Champions league penalty miss heartache: ‘It’s just one of those things’

BY PAUL LAGAN
paul@slpmedia.co.uk

Ross Barkley is hoping to put his Champions League penalty miss behind him and focus on Sunday’s visit of Liverpool to Stamford Bridge.

Already 1-0 down to Spanish outfit Valencia, Chelsea had a chance of
redemption when awarded a penalty late on.

Team-mate William appeared to ask Barkley a question seconds before the England midfielder was about to take the vital kick.

Barkley responded by pointing his finger to himself, suggesting that William had wanted to take the kick himself but was told no.

Only Barkley knows if this was a distraction, but he was keen to tell London Weekly Sport that it was his job to take it.

He said: “When I’m on the pitch, I take the penalties. Obviously I didn’t exercise it right but everybody misses penalties.

“But I felt confident.” So what did Willian and Jorginho say to him? Barkley was treading carefully with his answer.

“They were encouraging me to score the goal,” he said. Obviously they are confident they can take penalties as well. I practice them every day in training and I don’t miss. It’s more that we have got a lot of good penalty takers in the squad. On the sheet in the changing room, it said that I’m on the penalties if I’m on the pitch, otherwise it’s Jorginho.

“But they all feel confident to take them, we can all miss them. They said ‘good luck with the penalty’ type of thing. They were encouraging me, but I felt confident.

“In pre-season, I’ve scored penalties, and I’ve missed them before when I was at Everton. It’s just one of them things. I’m gutted I missed but these things happen.

“If there was another penalty in the game, I would have been confident to take it. You can miss penalties, it’s not the end of the world, We have got five more games in the group stage. But on Tuesday, it didn’t go our way.”

Chelsea have yet to win at Stamford Bridge in three attempts this season and the league leaders’ arrival at the weekend could prove difficult. But Barkley shrugs off the suggestion

“Not winning at home is a weird anomaly,” he said.

“We are going to win at home but we have a big game coming up on Sunday. Hopefully we will win that.

“We are joint third, we are not doing bad. We won at the weekend (away to Wolves), scoring goals, we have a confident bunch of lads in the team.”

Chelsea lost to Liverpool in the Super Cup last month and Barkley feels the Blues are ready for revenge.

“The big games brings the best out of all players, as you have seen in Super Cup final,” he said.

“We performed well and we will perform to those levels on Sunday. Hopefully we will win.

“Every side is beatable, it just goes down to hard work, putting in the extra yards, and be clinical and have a bit of luck.”