“He has to demand it himself.”
Paul Scholes and Dimitar Berbatov questioned Romelu Lukaku’s role in a penalty dispute during Manchester United’s 2-0 win over Benfica in the Champions League on Tuesday night. In the first-half, Anthony Martial missed a penalty, so, when the home side won a penalty late in the game, there was some confusion about who would take the kick.
Romelu Lukaku first collected the ball. However, seemingly because the Belgian striker missed a spot kick against Leicester City earlier in the season, Ander Herrera approached him and took the ball away. Then Daley Blind informed Herrera that he was to take the penalty, as Jose Mourinho barked instructions from the side line.
Blind eventually took the penalty and doubled United’s lead at Old Trafford, effectively confirming their place in the knockout stages of the competition.
During post-match interviews, Mourinho explained that he prevented Lukaku from taking the spot kick to protect him. The United manager will probably be criticised for being negative, and only taking into account the potential for Lukaku missing the kick, rather than considering the benefits of his striker scoring the goal. While others will argue that Mourinho has to prioritise qualification for the knockout rounds over the feelings of Lukaku.
On BT Sports, Dimitar Berbatov and Paul Scholes didn’t mention either and focused their attention on Lukaku instead of Mourinho. The former United pair were somewhat critical of the striker for not demanding to take the penalty.
Mourinho ordered Daley Blind to take the penalty instead of the Belgian striker https://t.co/DTkziZTVxt
— FootballJOE (@FootballJOE) November 1, 2017
“He has to demand it himself,” Scholes said, before speculating whether the Belgian might be low on confidence after a run of games without a goal.
“Take the ball, push them away,” Berbatov said.
“‘This is my goal, I need to score. I need this because I need the confidence back’. Then afterwards, you can see he was a bit lost for confidence the way he was jogging towards the penalty box. Not sprinting, he was jogging, losing that will to score because this was his moment and something happened.”
Those who disobey Mourinho’s orders tend not to last long in the first-team, so maybe Lukaku was right not to protest too much. But, at the same time, it’s possible to understand where Berbatov and Scholes were coming from.
You can watch their analysis here:
