Gerrard unhappy with game-changing decision
d.mccarthy@dailyrecord.co.uk who blames or look for excuses.
“The big moments have gone against us today, we are all responsible for that.
“But the reality is at the top end of football you expect the linesman to get one of them right from the three who were in an offside position.”
Gerrard insisted Morelos was his nominated spot-kick taker after captain James Tavernier had missed three this season. But he believes he’ll have to lift the entire team and not just the Colombian, who missed half a dozen opportunities, some of them after Celtic had Jeremie Frimpong red-carded for the foul that gave away the penalty.
He added: “It’s a big moment, a penalty at that time and Celtic going down to 10 men. If you execute there and then it puts you in a much stronger position.
“Alfredo was the nominated penalty taker. It was nothing to do with James passing the buck or anything like that. I decided we needed to change that up.
“Unfortunately we haven’t taken our chance in that big moment. People will look back at that moment as the chance to swing the momentum of the whole game in our favour, although we were much the stronger team throughout the 90 minutes anyway.
DAVID McCARTHY
“We’ll suffer and then we’ll bounce back.
“The feeling is pretty similar to being a player. I’m gutted for the players because a couple of minutes have decided the Cup Final. I don’t think they could have given me any more or themselves any more.
“But it is what it is. We need to just take that one on the chin. We threw everything at it but looking over it we haven’t grabbed the big moments.
“One was the penalty, obviously, but we created at least five or six other decent opportunities. You’ve got to take them if you want to win cup finals.
“We’ve got a huge game on Thursday and no better game to bounce back. On the evidence of what I’ve seen today, performance-wise, I’m staying right behind them.
“On the evidence of today we might have to suffer a little bit of course. We have to soak it up, remember it and be ready to give ourselves another opportunity and that type of performance will get us where we want to get to.”