BRENDAN RODGERS ADMITTED that he felt sorry for Dejan Lovren after he missed the decisive penalty which saw Liverpool crash out of the Europa League to Besiktas.
Having led 1-0 from the first leg, Liverpool were pegged back thanks to Tolgay Arslan’s second-half strike on Thursday at the Ataturk Stadium.
After a goalless 30 minutes of extra time, the last-32 tie went to penalties and Lovren was the villain as he skied his spot-kick to end Liverpool’s European campaign for another season.
“We’re disappointed to go out in the manner that we did. We created opportunities in the first half to make it really difficult for them,” Rodgers told reporters. “I feel sorry for Dejan because he had played really well in the game, but someone has to miss, and unfortunately it was us.
“Dejan was happy to take a pen — you see the five penalty takers were all confident. The four before had experience before in a penalty competition this season, and they were confident. It’s a shame it ended that way.
“Over the course of the game, we defended very well and limited them to very few chances but the one mistake we made, we got punished for, where we just got too deep and they scored.
“It’s no excuse. There were a lot of young players getting great experience with other players who are creative. We played with two strikers, so it was an attacking line-up.”
I’d say Van Gall is a very difficult man to work with.. He comes across so arrogant he even makes alex ferguson look humble..
I’m sure Giggs was happy with the win but just not in the manner in which it came
Never mind the relationship, who cares, where the fck do these generic incompetent reporters come from? You could get an app on a phone that would ask smarter questions….
I’m sure he’s delighted to have such an ambitious, ruthless and absolutely incredibly popular assistant manager.
Old Scholes didn’t exactly give him the vote of confidence the other day and I’m sure he’s still close with Giggs, I wonder did he know Paul was going to stick the boot in.
He seriously needs to chill out!
I always thought van gaal thought giggsy was a bit of a simp
He’s an awkward man!
Not sure about LVG. All arrogance and yet to back it up. Serious money spent and the team is a shambles. They create next to nothing. When they do score it’s more an accident than anything else. Terrible defence. Jones, Smalling & Fabio (is that his name?) are awful – should be playing with Derby or Burnley. Rojo way too rash. People go on about Falcao not scoring???? United create nothing for him. Give him some service and I’m certain he’ll put them away – he is proven quality. Di Maria? Don’t know what’s happened to him. Blind is as average as the day is long. He’s the dutch Glenn Whelan, every pass is sideways or backwards. LVG brings on Fellaini to dig him out of a hole every 2nd game? Unreal. I wonder does the chap realise how lucky he is to play for United – he’s absolutely rubbish. And I’m not jumping on the band wagon, I thought that from day one. Ever see him try to control the ball with his fee? He’s not able to. I suppose the only good thing is that they are 4th, but I fancy Liverpool to finish 4th. United with a lot of tough fixtures in the last 12 odd games. (Liverpool, Spurs, City, Chelsea, Everton)
Dutch Glen Whelan I love it
Ah the paper looks for angle
Man U are pure shite this season.