[Albion] 2nd penalty

[Green Cross Code Man]

I would have like to have seen welbeck score from the second, obviously because it would be a goal but I am interested in why mason blew his whistle when welbeck was attempting the rebound shot.
If the ball had gone in I have a feeling it would have been another controversial moment.

A player can't touch the ball twice in succession whilst talking a penalty. Had the keeper saved it and it rebounded, that would be a different matter.

 

[DJ NOBO]

Or maybe they are doing a fine job? The guys are working hard, wanting the ball, playing some very decent football, creating lots of chances and gets ****ed over, repeat x10. Yet they go out and do the same thing next week, no hanging heads, no hiding on the pitch, no giving up preemptively. Indicates strength if you ask me.

As for confidence, indeed its lacking but nothing but fluke will solve it. The staff and players and sports psychologists can make sure that the players dont bury themselves, give up or stop trying. That can be done. But the confidence part? Only winning really solves it. If you try to do something 60 times in two weeks, no psychologist is going to be able to convince you that it will happen the 61th time (you'd need a lobotomist, not a psychologist, for that), they can only convince you to try.

Ok, but There’s a type of confidence and self assurance that can be learned in sport.
Take the last World Cup. The England team were mentally-conditioned to put their pens away in the shoot-out. They acted like robots. Even Eric Dier was never going to miss.
Those pens on Saturday - we were never going to score. They looked mentally fragile.

 

[Pint of Ale and a Burger]

A player can't touch the ball twice in succession whilst talking a penalty. Had the keeper saved it and it rebounded, that would be a different matter.

Ahhh ok,thanks for clearing that up.
I stand corrected and
In that case that was actually quite quick reactions by mason.

 

[Swansman]

There were generations of England managers, who continually stuck the the mantra that you can't practice penalties, as it's different in a pressure situation. Hoddle is the one that stuck to this viewpoint the most vocally.

We lost every shoot out we entered for 20 years. Often with players who'd never taken one in practice, taking them in world cup knockout matches

Then, we got a manager who to his credit, said, "nope, that's bollocks, you can do a lot to replicate the pressure of a real environment, and in any case, the way to reduce the pressure is to have honed your skills with hours upon hours of practice".

And blow me, we won one.

Not practice penalties? Are you totally insane? Behind the scenes in a football club people pour over stats to try and get the most marginal of gains. In training in club football they practice the minutiae, to get every little edge possible to win a match. Why in a season with a record number of penalties, when we have an abysmal record of scoring from open play would you not have your best takers, practicing 100 or 1000 a day? What have they got better to do? How are you going to find a gain in training better than being confident with penalties?

So you are using one situation and the words of one manager as proof that practicing penalties are perfectly reasonable?

As for your question - perhaps the abysmal record from open play is a very good reason to practice open play? What better they have to do? To practice situations that happens 10, 20 or 100 times per game rather than something that happens ca 10 times per season is far more logical and the approach pretty much every coach got.

I'm not saying you shouldnt practice penalties at all. Its probably done too little in most teams. 100 or 1000 is pointless however and to do it often is silly as penalties rarely happens as said in your Southgate quote it needs to replicate high pressure situations and if you take 100 penalties in a training session, the 67th is never going to be anything near a replica of a real situation.

Ultimately I agree it perhaps should be done more but I seriously doubt it is. If you watch 100 or 200 hours of random training sessions from different coaches, you'll find very few penalties. And the fact that only ca 60% of penalties taken when the team is behind gets scored while over 90% of the penalties taken while already ahead turns into goals, there's obviously more than "feeling comfortable about taking penalties", or ability, affecting the penalty taker.

 

[Swansman]

Ok, but There’s a type of confidence and self assurance that can be learned in sport.
Take the last World Cup. The England team were mentally-conditioned to put their pens away in the shoot-out. They acted like robots. Even Eric Dier was never going to miss.
Those pens on Saturday - we were never going to score. They looked mentally fragile.

They looked mentally fragile because they are mentally fragile (in front of goal) currently, no doubt. If the CP and/or Villa game were won, the likelyhood of scoring on one of those penalties would probably have been a lot higher. The second of those penalties was taken by a player who was part of the 2018 squad and should have gone through the "robot" conditioning (perhaps why he took it?) but nevertheless missed anyway. You can probably turn good confidence to great confidence through training, but I personally dont see a world where the (most likely) dire confidence in front of goal could reach any higher level than "slightly less dire" through anything but actually scoring.

 

[Uh_huh_him]

I believe you have a designated penalty taker. You don't switch in the middle of the game, it is something that is decided and done in training. And I'm not sure the 'best' penalty taker is always the best choice. I believe that you can coach the player with 'most confidence' to practice penalties and become the designated one.

As has been pointed out, they have all played football at a very high standard for years and are all capable of being coached to put a ball where it needs to go from 12 yards. The real difference is in the head. Of course there will be occasional misses, but if you have chosen the right player they will step up and do it again 30 seconds later or 12 games later. I did think that Pascal was that player but evidently not. Dunk ?

Hemed was a freak, I still don't understand how he did it, (and he had occasional misses) but was always supremely confident. And I don't remember a lot of his penalties being firmly hit into those few inches just inside either post.

There was a freak stat about Hemed being the player scoring penalties with the shortest distance away from the keeper, worldwide.
Basically he was able to watch which way the keeper was going and push the ball to the other side.

I think he has missed 2 in his career (1 for us??) scored 20 odd.

 

[DJ NOBO]

They looked mentally fragile because they are mentally fragile (in front of goal) currently, no doubt. If the CP and/or Villa game were won, the likelyhood of scoring on one of those penalties would probably have been a lot higher. The second of those penalties was taken by a player who was part of the 2018 squad and should have gone through the "robot" conditioning (perhaps why he took it?) but nevertheless missed anyway. You can probably turn good confidence to great confidence through training, but I personally dont see a world where the (most likely) dire confidence in front of goal could reach any higher level than "slightly less dire" through anything but actually scoring.

We may never know

 

[raymondo]

Thought the same; turns out he's only taken 1 penalty during his senior career, and that was for England in a friendly against Spain. He scored.

100% score record then

 

[KeegansHairPiece]

I was thinking about this yesterday after someone put a link to the training centre staff. I was surprised to see it includes a team of psychology specialists. The club is very proud of this and sees it as progressive.
I wonder if it’s counter productive. Maybe it over complicates things for the players ? Makes players too soft? Or Maybe the psychologists aren’t getting close enough to the first team in a way that counts?
Whatever the case, You could smell the lack of confidence ahead of those penalties.
And Our strikers’ minds appear to be more mashed than any others I’ve seen at the club.
In a nutshell - If the intention was to employ psychologists to improve team performance, it’s not working.

It's not a panacea to all potential complexities of confidence, belief etc.

You also cannot conclude because the players lack confidence / belief in front of goal at the moment, the psychology dept. has failed. Who knows, without that department we may not have equalised against Wolves, scored against Leeds, Spurs and Liverpool and sit with just 16 points. Perhaps it is that department that turned the defending around in the new year and led to our unbeaten run. How can we know?

 

[raymondo]

So you are using one situation and the words of one manager as proof that practicing penalties are perfectly reasonable?

As for your question - perhaps the abysmal record from open play is a very good reason to practice open play? What better they have to do? To practice situations that happens 10, 20 or 100 times per game rather than something that happens ca 10 times per season is far more logical and the approach pretty much every coach got.

I'm not saying you shouldnt practice penalties at all. Its probably done too little in most teams. 100 or 1000 is pointless however and to do it often is silly as penalties rarely happens as said in your Southgate quote it needs to replicate high pressure situations and if you take 100 penalties in a training session, the 67th is never going to be anything near a replica of a real situation.

Ultimately I agree it perhaps should be done more but I seriously doubt it is. If you watch 100 or 200 hours of random training sessions from different coaches, you'll find very few penalties. And the fact that only ca 60% of penalties taken when the team is behind gets scored while over 90% of the penalties taken while already ahead turns into goals, there's obviously more than "feeling comfortable about taking penalties", or ability, affecting the penalty taker.

I agree with you 80%, but... I think it was Beckham who'd stay late after training and practise his free kicks, so it was automatic to drop the ball where he wanted to. I think there's an argument for plenty of penalty practice so that in the pressure situation the muscle memory of the practice can exceed the nerves of the pressure.
Of course, it may all be boll*cks.

 

[FamilyGuy]

On the basis Gross has taken very good penalties this season and everyone is entitled to miss one. I was surprised he didnt take 2nd . Did he not want to know or did Welbeck push himself forward

Surely it's a more telling fact that our centre forward was nowhere near taking either of the penalties.

 

[Swansman]

Surely it's a more telling fact that our centre forward was nowhere near taking either of the penalties.

Surely its even more telling you dont even consider Danny Welbeck a centre forward at this point...

 

[Nigella's Cream Pie]

They should try the Ivan Toney method: stare at the keeper, I guess to judge which way he's going to move but also to put him off.
Result is he's scored all 7 of penalties taken for Brentford this season, including shoot outs.

 

[Mr Smggles]

I’d like to see Dunk to step up and take the next one. He usually takes them in the shootouts and needs to lead by example.

 

[Arthritic Toe]

I found this absolutely astonishing. I dunno who the commentator was, but I gather the co-commentator was Lee Hendrie. For neither of them to have a clue about the laws of the game when a penalty comes back off the woodwork to the penalty taker without anyone else having had a touch was staggering ignorance. Its not THAT rare an occurrence.

They are absolutely stealing a living.

Me too. It annoys me that these people can't be bothered to even learn the rules of the game. You'd think if that was your job you might at least read the rulebook. It often happens with offsides too. The rules have changed over time, and whether they like the changes or not, you'd think they might take the time to at least learn the changes. Lawro - still calls offsides from the 70's rulebook.

 

[vagabond]

I don’t know if this can be verified or not, but according to a tweet from a Polish fan I saw earlier, Moder regularly took penalties for his club side in Poland and has never missed a penalty in his career.

Get him to take the next one.

 

[albionalex]

I don’t know if this can be verified or not, but according to a tweet from a Polish fan I saw earlier, Moder regularly took penalties for his club side in Poland and has never missed a penalty in his career.

Get him to take the next one.

He's not that likely to be on the pitch.

 

[vagabond]

He's not that likely to be on the pitch.

Good reason to start him.

 

[Grassman]

aha.. thanks for flagging that. Makes so much more sense now.

Yeah, whatever.

Actually, to me it does make sense, because when I see ‘of’ written instead of ‘have’, I tend to not read the sentence properly and just have an internal “no!” bounce around my head. It’s the same when I hear some ex-footballer pundit say “it’s them things” or “it’s them players” on the radio. I don’t listen to the point they are actually making, I just hear something wrong.

D’you know what I mean, innit.

 

[METALMICKY]

Now I'm of a certain age so I get misty eyed about all time great penalty takers. But as a kid just had to love the Dutchman Johan Neeskens. No messing about and no problem doing it in a World Cup final 2 minutes in!