Liverpool
[Video] Henderson & Sturridge Unhappy With Balotelli After Penalty Drama
Jordan Henderson, Daniel Sturridge and Steven Gerrard were all left unimpressed with Mario Balotelli after he broke team orders to take the winning penalty.
Liverpool secured a narrow 1-0 victory over Besiktas in the first leg of their Europa League last 32 tie at Anfield on Thursday night thanks to a late Mario Balotelli penalty.
With just 7 minutes left of normal time and the game looking set to end goalless, Jordon Ibe was fouled in the area handing Liverpool the perfect opportunity to score a late winner.
Skipper Jordan Henderson was the designated penalty taker, but Balotelli controversially went against team orders to snatch the ball from the midfielder.
Both Henderson and striker Daniel Sturridge had words with the Italian but he insisted he was the man to take the spot kick, and unlike Kevin Mirallas for Everton a couple of weeks ago, he justified his decision by cooly slotting home the penalty to win the game for the Reds.
However, Henderson and Sturridge were clearly not impressed by Balotelli’s actions, as can be seen in the video below.
Injured captain Steven Gerrard blasted the striker after the game, claiming he showed Henderson disrespect and insisted that the stand-in skipper should have taken the penalty.
“Jordan should have taken the penalty. Rules are rules. It should have been Henderson. Mario has been a bit mischievous.”
“Credit to Mario, he’s scored, but it’s not nice to see when footballers are arguing. I think Jordan has handled the situation very well. He can see that Mario really wanted to score. Jordan walked away at the right moment and handled his post match interview very well.
“Jordan is the captain and Mario showed Jordan a bit of disrespect there, but he’s scored a very important goal. I think six or seven players would have wanted to take that penalty so if they all say they are taking it, what happens then?! Rules are in place for a reason.”
Gerrard said on ITV after the game.
You can watch the incident and the resulting penalty here:
