Former Manchester United midfielder Ryan Giggs believes that Marcus Rashford should have demanded to take the penalty Paul Pogba missed against Wolverhampton Wanderers.
The Frenchman drew a foul from Conor Coady in the area with scores tied at 1-1 and asked to take the spot-kick ahead of regular penalty taker Rashford, who had scored from the spot against Chelsea in United’s first game of the season.
Pogba saw his effort saved well by Rui Patricio, however, and Giggs feels that Rashford should have insisted on taking the penalty himself.
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“[Rashford is a] centre-forward, scores a goal in his first league game, penalty, you get another penalty in the next game, you’ve got to be demanding to take it,” Giggs told Optus Sport.
“It’s a shame, he was really disciplined tonight, Pogba.
“Pogba has not got a great record either of scoring penalties. He doesn’t score every penalty he takes.
“It seems like whoever wins the penalty gets to take it, I wonder if [Harry] Maguire or [Victor] Lindelof win the penalty, who gets to take it?
“I was surprised. I’m not surprised that Paul Pogba stepped up, because he’s that kind of player, which is obviously encouraging.
“I’m just surprised when you’ve scored a penalty the game before, that you get a penalty the next game you don’t take it. So you open up to criticism then, because if Marcus misses it then OK, you can miss a penalty, but now everybody is talking about why Marcus didn’t take it, why did Pogba take it?
“It should have been Marcus. It’s a strange one because before the game you usually have a designated penalty taker and you would think it would be Marcus after scoring last week. Like I say, he’s done it the week before.
“Again, there’s a conversation. Ole’s said after the game that they have two designated penalty takers and looking at this [last week’s] maybe they do, and again tonight they have the same conversation, so it’ll be interesting to see, ‘Do you fancy it? No, I fancy it?’
“If I’d have gone walking over to Ruud van Nistelrooy he’d have just said, ‘Go back!’ and he’d have put the ball underneath his shirt. There’s no way you’re getting the ball off him.
“So that’s why I find it a little bit difficult to understand, once a centre-forward has scored a penalty, next penalty they get, [someone else is] taking it.”
Manchester United are set to host Crystal Palace on Saturday.