I can’t help but kick off this piece by bringing Daniel Farke’s “philosophy” on penalties – and more importantly, who takes them, to the forefront.
After an excellent point and result against Derby – which could, or couldn’t, have been more – Farke said there were two nominated penalty takers in our side, i.e. Nelson and Madders. But Farke’s key point was that if either is the one who is fouled the other must take the penalty.
DanieI, I would have died for your playing career, let alone that of Wes, Alex Tettey or to have been able to emulate the embryonic emergence of James Maddison. I simply wasn’t good enough I’m afraid.
But when I played in the middle divisions of a very large league in Essex our old manager, Cooky, thought quite differently on pens.
His attitude was: “The man who fouled you stopped you scoring. He stopped you assisting (not that the phrase existed in those days). Now go punish the “gentleman” in goal by busting his net.” And you know what? It worked. It was always given to the man brought down to take.
My role in this was simple. If one of our players really, really didn’t fancy it I would put the round thing on the spot. Playing at left-back as I did the keeper hadn’t even seen me apart from the corners I came up for, let alone have had the chance to psych me out. Fordy and Mickey rarely wanted to give me the ball for a spotty, but on a few occasions the latter did.
To any reader who thinks it’s easy (I’m sure most of you know it isn’t), just tarry for a moment. The goal looks utterly massive and the keeper so small. Until you’re actually taking one, and I can assure you the mindset changes.
The keeper makes himself large and invariably starts bouncing about three feet forward from his line. Suddenly those angles don’t look so easy and the distractions are in full flow. You do your thing, and so does the keeper. The original who dares wins really.
So, what I’m saying is: I hope supporters lay off Nelson. Sure, it was a cr@p penalty but anyone who has ever taken one at any level should surely understand. It is NOT as easy as it looks unless your confidence level is through the roof (Hi Madders – congrats on double figures for goals scored for the season!).
We all know about the early kick-off on Sunday and all that it means to all of us. Nelson simply has to be part of that side as it’s hardly the game for Dennis Srbeny to debut in. Ten games without a goal – what better time for our Nelson to rediscover his touch?
They got “Burtoned” on Saturday, Uncle Mick has been in full vocal flow recently with his oil tankers and paddles stuff directed at those poor old Mackems so the “banter” has already begun, even if it has yet to be directed at us.
I lump MickMac in with Colin – as much as I mildly dislike both of them I feel no hatred whatsoever towards either. Characters who will be a loss to the game when they depart from it, which will surely not be long in either case.
Giving the Binners a Farke-style 1-0 beating would please me immensely.
Yes Martin and I can see both philosophies re penalty takers and one observation I’ve made re Nelson (aka Basil) when he takes a penalty is that for the last 3 I’ve seen him take, he has ALWAYS gone to his left, the keeper’s right and has been successful with only one (the other two have been saved) because he hit it so hard that it beat the keeper, even though he dived the right way. I would suggest he watches videos of James Milner taking penalties – I’m pretty sure he has scored from every one this season at least.
Moving on to Maddison and whether or not he may still be at CR next season and the mutual respect between him and Farke – I think it was after he scored the equaliser against Preston, he rushed over to the dugout to share his joy with our Head Coach before celebrating with his teammates.
SHOULD Maddison be sold, it will be interesting to see which club he chooses to join and IMO, it’s between Liverpool and Spurs.
Thanks Ed.
James Milner is a superb penalty taker, along with Frank Lampard, our own Neil Adams(!) and so many others, of course.
As far as Madders is concerned I feel a sale and season-long loanback would be ideal for all parties. I agree with you on your selection of Liverpool or Spurs – I’m hoping it’s the latter as they’re my second team:-)
I would give Nelson a start Sunday just for him being more experienced. If he does not deliver then he must be put on the bench for the next game.As for madders we might just see him in the yellow shirt until next January, (hopefully).
Thank you Tony.
I quite agree about Nelson but we all know how much we want to win this one – as I said above I don’t feel it too appropriate to pitch in Srbeny from the start on this occasion.
Confidence is a funny thing, in all walks of life, but is more crucial to sportsmen than us lesser mortals.
I’d certainly stick with our Portugeezer on Sunday. Whether to bring back the other Portugeezer in place of Harrison Reed is a call I would not like to make.
I’m getting worried by the optimism of City fans generally an me in particular, this usually precedes something bad happening. However, we are much better than we were the last time we played our next 2 opponents, I just hope this improvement is reflected in the forthcoming results.
Nelson will start scoring soon; he’s far too good a player for this run to continue much longer. Apart from the penalty, he was excellent on Saturday (which is a bit like saying ‘apart from that Mrs Lincoln, how was your visit to the theatre?).
I agree with you about MM and Colin. I wouldn’t want to have to watch the football their teams produce on a regular basis but I think they’d be good company for a beer. That bloke from SUFC seems to want to step into their shoes but lacks the charm and intelligence.
Yeah there’s a bit of the old feelgood factor floating around just now.
Love the Abe meets the gun reference and I too would enjoy a bevvy with either of them – particularly Colin actually, although I think I’d call him Neil to his face.
Wilder and charisma appear never to have met, agreed.
Hi Martin
An excellent read
If as we all know N-O is so short on confidence why didn’t he defer to Maddison to take the first Pen to square things up it just might have changed the outcome of the game earlier in cities favor????.
Did you read the Webber interview where he detailed in the EDP on Maddison future it was very interesting he also implied Pritchard wanted to leave for the prem and Huddersfield were the only club interested.
City seem to have a habit of letting players leave to early in their careers.
Norman now at Kings Lynn Championship,League 1&2 clubs looking at him his assists and goals are very good EDP saying city are looking why not bring him back for a trial ????
Loza at Maidenhead scoring a few
Mcgeehan improved at Luton went to Barnsley now out on loan there are possibly more and yes I know all club make slip ups but with Norman being non contract it wouldn’t cost city a lot, if in doubt call Ian Culverhouse for his take on him
Thanks as ever, Alex.
As for the point about the first penalty DF’s diktat is: if you’re brought down, you won’t take it, which I had never known before. That’s his view, which may well be the right one, but I was brought up differently as I said above.
Of all the youngsters we historically let go early I don’t have regrets about too many of them tbh. I cannot think of anybody who has become a revenant. Korey Smith and Tom Adeyemi are about as close as it gets and I don’t really miss either of them.
I suspect that while we keep Mr Webber in situ the academy will produce much, much more.
Consider the off-radar signings of guys around 18 we have made, like Power and the RB from the Terriers whose name escapes me just now. Thanks to Delia’s obduracy it’s a conveyor belt approach and has to be.
We can only see what happens:-)
With all respect to Lynn and Maidenhead they’re not really what we should be looking at to in order to improve our squad.
Ok I take your point on this and can see where you are coming from.
At present we have 4 CB’s at city with one on loan we are now being informed that city are kern on a free transfer from Wigan who didn’t do much at any of his other clubs but has has a 4 months spell were he is possibly the best in his league do we honestly need another more like back up for the 2 fullbacks
Well I reckon we still need cover for Ivo at RB, even if only because Harrison Reed won’t be here next season.
Strangely I thought our best ever RB (second to Culverhouse, obviously) was a loan – Kyle Naughton.
In terms of CBs we do seem pretty well provisioned and Hanley looks like a steal. Timm Klose’s got one more year on his contract and it’ll be interesting to see which way Webber jumps – ie retain an excellent player for one more season on big wages or cash in before he can leave on a free? I hope Timm stays but this summer will be interesting to put it mildly:-)
Get Webber to speak to Augburgh and do a swap for Leitner and hope that either Raggett or Franke can fill the gap??????
Thoroughly agree Martin! Let’s give Nelson some love on Sunday, he’s the type,of bloke who will love to stick it to the away support for abusing him, let’s give him a boost.
I only ever took one penalty, smashing it over the bar having decided that if the goalkeeper was intent on getting in the way, he was going into the net with the ball. I won the penalty so it was mine to miss.
Mine to miss! Yeah that is what it was basically all about with Cooky.
Strangely the only one I ever took that meant anything (progress to a Cup Final) I scored, and from what is fast becoming my geriatric memory I think my record was 3 out of 5.
Not that good really. But better than some:-)