Liverpool snatched a very important 1-0 victory over Besiktas in their 1st leg of the Europa League match which was played at Anfield with Mario Balotelli scoring the only goal of the entire match through a penalty kick that was netted during the last few minutes of the match.
Besiktas is now obliged to score at least one goal when both sides meet on February 26 at the Atatürk Olimpiyat Stadıum in Istanbul.
However, even though Liverpool was the team that claimed the victory and now have an advantage of 1 goal, there was something that occurred which continues being a topic of discussion involving Mario Balotelli and if he was the appropriate player to step up and take the penalty kick.
When the match was over, Steven Gerrard stated that Mario Balotelli shouldn’t have taken the set-piece and it should have been Jordan Henderson.
"Jordan should have taken the penalty. Rules are rules. It should have been Henderson. Mario has been a bit mischievous. 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."
Liverpool’s talismanic Steven Gerrard said after the Europa League match against Besiktas reached it’s end.
Steven Gerrard stated that whenever he is unable to play in a match, Jordan Henderson is the man that has already been pre-selected by the team to take the set-piece and it has already even been established in the rules of the club and this is why Balotelli shouldn’t have stepped up to take the shot.
Gerrard as the invaluable captain that he is for Liverpool is trying to enforce the rules that have already been made by the club but taking into consideration that Mario Balotelli has a superb track record when it comes to taking penalty kicks, the Italian forward should be higher in the pecking order whenever this set-piece is given to Liverpool.
Balotelli missed his 1st penalty kick in a competitive match on September 22 of 2013 when performing for Ac.Milan and Pepe Reina saved the shot; this was his very first miss in 22 attempts as a professional player in a match. It’s a very good record and Liverpool should start taking full advantage of this.