Have you calmed down yet?
In all honesty, I don’t think I could really blame you if you haven’t, because that last-minute penalty really does feel like it could be something that defines our season. I just hope that it doesn’t end up costing us further down the road.
Yes, there’s plenty of football to be played, but if we miss out on something by one point, I know the first place I’m going to be looking when it comes to placing the blame, and that will be squarely at the feet of Ademola Lookman for that bone-headed decision on Saturday night.
The question now becomes, what do we do with him?
There is some level of precedent when it comes to incidences like this at the club. Back in 2018/19 when Aboubakar Kamara had his little incident with Aleksander Mitrovic and Claudio Ranieri, he was shipped out on loan to Turkey (although there were some other factors involved as well, you have to think that the penalty incident played a part).
The problem is, that he has arguably been our best and most important player this season. If this was a more fringe player like say Ivan Cavaleiro, Bobby Decordova-Reid, Harrison Reed etc., then you’d easily make the argument for dropping him and letting him serve a punishment on the bench. If you did that though, you’d more than likely be hurting the team more than you would the player.
Would you drop Lookman for what he did?
Yes
No
That doesn’t mean he should be let off the hook completely, there still needs to be some form of internal punishment (whether that be a fine or perhaps some form of physical punishment like being made to run sprints before and after training sort of thing), hopefully something that will teach him a lesson about putting himself before the side in the future.
What about you? What would you do if you were Scott Parker in this situation?