Just when I thought that we’d got over all the fuss and feather surrounding penalties at Fulham, it comes back at us like a boomerang.
It really is starting to feel like the 2016/17 season all over again, and that just gives me a bit of a sinking feeling. What makes it worse is that it completely goes against what Aleksandar Mitrovic said when he was away on international duty about being the club’s number one penalty taker. He was on the pitch when the penalty was taken so something is clearly going on behind the scenes that is sewing a few bad seeds of mistrust, otherwise Mitrovic would have been the man to take it.
Scott Parker’s comments after the game weren’t exactly the most encouraging on the matter either:
“You couldn’t have written it when he slipped and missed. There is no denying we have an issue with penalties. We’ll keep working and training to see who is the best to take them. All I can say is over the last 10 days, we’ve put things in place. Ivan is an exceptional penalty taker. Last time I was angry, today – these things can happen.”
Do you have confidence in Parker fixing the penalty situation?
Yes
No
The question now becomes, where do we go from here?
Do we continue cycling through penalty takers until we find one that sticks? Something that clearly didn’t work in 16/17 when we were looking to Tim Ream by the end of it to take our penalties? Or do we go back to having one designated taker and just ‘ride or die’ with him no matter what happens?
I personally prefer the latter option. The best example that comes to mind right away is Ruud Van Nistelrooy at Manchester United back in 2003/04, who missed a crucial penalty against Arsenal but kept hold of his penalty taker responsibilities that season rather than have it taken away and he managed to somewhat bounce back.
If things got disastrous and he missed three in a row, then maybe you think about changing, but it shouldn’t be a case of one strike and you’re out, especially on a matter as crucial as this.
What about you? What would you do to solve the penalty problem?