Wayne Rooney praised Mads Hermansen for his penalty save in Leicester City’s 1-0 defeat at Chelsea - and then explained why he would have given the goalkeeper no chance if he had been taking the spot kick.
The former Manchester United and England captain was on punditry duties for Match of the Day 2, and he was asked to analyse the Cole Palmer penalty that was brilliantly pushed away by the Denmark international.
Rooney told viewers: “Penalties are tough, and I missed a few in my career. I used to practice penalties the day before a game. I used to take five penalties and always go the way I knew I was going to go in a game. I wouldn't change my mind, so I never focused on the goalkeeper at all really. I just had the confidence in myself.
“As a goalkeeper, you are trying to find something to get a clue to which way the forward's going to go with the penalty. And it's a great penalty, Palmer strikes it really well, but you have to praise the goalkeeper.”
And Rooney claimed Palmer had given Hermansen a hint at which way he would strike his kick by looking in that direction moments before the save was made.
He added: “I think you see it, he looked to his right a few times. It's a pressure moment and I think you could see he looked at it a few times, at the side that he was going.”
For Palmer, who struck his kick to his right and Hermansen’s left, it was the first penalty he had missed in senior football, and Rooney was sympathetic.
He explained: “I missed a couple going to the keeper's left - I missed against Liverpool, against Man City, against West Ham going to the keeper's left. After that I thought that with the majority of my penalties I was going to the keeper's right, and smashing it as hard as I can.”
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