Frank Sinclair made a pretty good point as he commentated on the Chelsea game for Sky Sports tonight. Ross Barkley made such a huge scene about taking the penalty that he absolutely had to score it. He made it a situation where he would be the absolute hero or the villain.
I would go one further and say his antics turned the odds against him in terms of scoring the penalty. It became such a big deal that it heaped incredible amounts of pressure on himself.
Of course he went on to miss the spot kick, and it now means Frank Lampard has an almighty mess to deal with. It looked like Jorginho was the designated penalty taker but Barkley decided he was the one taking it.
Lampard tried to calm the situation by saying Barkley was the designated taker as confirmed by this tweet quoting The Telegraph:
The problem for Lampard is it seems a lot of the fans aren’t buying his explanation. It’s a remarkable comedown when you consider how positive things were after the win at Wolves on Saturday. They won a tough game, the youngsters excelled and the future looked truly bright.
These fans took to Twitter to express their frustration and show how quickly things can change in football:
FYI Mr. Lampard… Stop the lies cos I know these boys can get u sacked. Stop the lies Frank. Stop the lies. https://t.co/f5kdvhdQap
— Kwabena POKU (@KwabenaPoku) September 17, 2019
Lampard said Barkley is the first choice penalty taker… has to be the worst of all that you have witnessed/heard today ??♂️
— SHYAM (@shyams002) September 17, 2019