Chelsea’s Midfilder Ross Berkley has spoken on his last night Penalty miss against Valencia at Stamford Bridge.
Barkley who missed a penalty that could have helped the London side share points with their Spanish opponent insisted that he remains the club’s designated penalty kick taker regardless of his Tuesday night miss.
After a goalless half time, Rodrigo scored the only goal in the game at the 74th-minute to grab a winner for Valencia.
Willian, Jorginho and Tammy Abraham were all in discussion with Barkley after the referee checked with VAR to give a penalty for a handball by Daniel Wass in the 87th minute, however Barkley who insisted on taking the penalty kick was unable to savage Chelsea’s loss as he failed to score the penalty kick.
The Blues midfielder said it’s not the end of the world that he missed against Valencia although did accept it was a disappointment to lose the game
“When I’m on the pitch, I’ll take the penalty,” he told reporters. “Obviously I didn’t execute it right but everybody misses penalties. I didn’t score the goal but I felt confident. 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’ve got five more games in the group stage that we’re aiming to win but this didn’t go our way.”
Barkley has taken five other penalties during his time at Chelsea across penalty-shootouts and during matches.
“We’ve got a lot of good penalty-takers in the squad and on a sheet in the changing rooms it says I’m on penalties if I’m on the pitch,” he added.
“Otherwise, it’s Jorginho. But as with all players, sometimes you feel confident to take them on but we can all miss one.
“They are confident to take the penalties as well but I practice them every day. I don’t miss them in training and in pre-season I scored penalties. I’ve missed penalties before when I was at Everton and it is one of those things. I’m gutted that I missed but these things happen.
“It [the conversations with his team-mates before the penalty] was more like ‘good luck with the penalty’ type of thing. They were encouraging me and would have been willing to take the penalty as well but I felt confident. It was a disappointing night all round. Our first game in the group stage, our first game at home as well, it was disappointing.
“Missing a penalty is not the end of the world for me. It is a disappointing result not coming away with the three points and disappointing for me not executing the penalty right. I felt confident that I would have but for me, it is to focus on the next game and to get three points at the weekend.”
Chelsea will on Sunday be playing against Liverpool who also lost their Champions League match at Napoli.
