{"id":61551,"date":"2025-02-19T14:16:14","date_gmt":"2025-02-19T14:16:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/?p=61551"},"modified":"2025-02-19T14:16:14","modified_gmt":"2025-02-19T14:16:14","slug":"lookman-responds-to-gasperinis-criticism-over-penalty-miss","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/2025\/02\/19\/lookman-responds-to-gasperinis-criticism-over-penalty-miss\/","title":{"rendered":"Lookman Responds to Gasperini\u2019s Criticism Over Penalty Miss"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>By Ifeoluwa Odunayo<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Atalanta forward Ademola Lookman has expressed disappointment over remarks made by his coach, Gian Piero Gasperini, following his penalty miss in Atalanta\u2019s UEFA Champions League (UCL) knockout defeat to Club Brugge.<\/p>\n<p>Atalanta suffered a 3-1 loss on Tuesday, exiting the UCL with a 5-2 aggregate defeat. Lookman, making his return from a knee injury that had sidelined him since January, scored just seconds after coming on but later missed a penalty, prompting criticism from Gasperini.<\/p>\n<p>The Italian coach bluntly stated that Lookman is \u201cone of the worst penalty takers I\u2019ve ever seen\u201d and should have allowed a more prolific teammate to take the kick.<\/p>\n<p>In response, Lookman issued a statement on Wednesday, expressing his disappointment and frustration at being singled out despite his commitment to the team.<\/p>\n<p>He explained that Atalanta\u2019s designated penalty taker had asked him to step up, and he took the shot in the team\u2019s best interest.<\/p>\n<p>Despite the setback, the Nigerian international assured fans of his unwavering dedication and vowed to keep pushing forward.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By Ifeoluwa Odunayo Atalanta forward Ademola Lookman has expressed disappointment over remarks made by his coach, Gian Piero Gasperini, following his penalty miss in Atalanta\u2019s UEFA Champions League (UCL) knockout defeat to Club Brugge. Atalanta suffered a 3-1 loss on Tuesday, exiting the UCL with a 5-2 aggregate defeat. Lookman, making his return from a [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":32,"featured_media":61553,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[175],"tags":[59],"class_list":["post-61551","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sports","tag-featured"],"aioseo_notices":[],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61551","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/32"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=61551"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61551\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":61554,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61551\/revisions\/61554"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/61553"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=61551"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=61551"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=61551"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}