Gareth Bale compared the failed penalty efforts of Salah and Kylian Mbappe in light of the win for Liverpool.
Gareth Bale says he was impressed by the way Mohamed Salah responded to his penalty miss against Real Madrid and believes the error will be forgotten soon enough given Liverpool won. Goals from Alexis Mac Allister and Cody Gakpo saw the hosts run out 2-0 victors.
Salah will be ruing the fact the scoreline didn’t have an extra goal after squandering the opportunity to double his Champions League tally this season for the table-toppers. His powerful attempt ended up clipping the outside of the post as it flashed wide.
The forward’s missed spot kick was his first unconverted effort out of four penalties he’s taken this season. The Egyptian has once again been in scintillating form this term, having scored in each of his past five Premier League goals, including a winning brace in Sunday’s 3-2 triumph over Southampton.
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He is only two behind Erling Haaland’s 12 strikes in the top scores chart ahead of this Sunday’s clash with Manchester City. The 32-year-old’s missed penalty came nine minutes after Kylian Mbappe saw his own spot kick palmed away by Caoimhin Kelleher.
While appearing as a pundit on TNT Sports, Bale – who famously scored an overhead kick for Real in the 3-1 Champions League final win over Liverpool in 2018 – believes Mbappe will face more criticism for his saved effort than Salah will. Mbappe had failed to convert with the score still only 1-0.
“You will get Mbappe now getting all the bad headlines for missing a pen and nobody will say a thing about Salah. That’s just the way football is,” Bale said.
Reacting to the clip of Salah missing his penalty, the Welshman added: “Yet again, the world’s best players can easily miss penalties. It is not as easy as it looks on TV sometimes.
“The nerves and the situation can get the better of you. He reacted very well after it.”
