Ross Barkley saves the day . . .oh, no. Not quite. Jesus wept. Do we have a captain? Do we have a designated PK taker?
Soon as the words "Ross Barkley" and "to take" were mentioned I knew he was going to miss. Jesus, I'd trust Kepa over Barkley to take it.
there seemed to be some debate between willian and ross on who was taking it. not a full blown controversy but willian definitely seemed to have some interest there. wonder if we'll here more about that.
Lol, say what you will about Jorginho (and I understand much or the criticism), he takes Italy’s penalties! Willian takes penalties for Brazil occasionally, as I recall. But no we give it to Ross Barkley, who’s been on the pitch for 3 minutes. Nice.
Willian had a right to take it by virtue of being the biggest threat. Jorg is also an option as a penalty taker this season. Ross had absolutely no business taking that and frank has to have that stuff sorted out long before the kick off. That is the most maddening moment of the season and exposes several issues. Ridiculous.
TBH I don't think he was 'given' anything so much as just took it. If you recall we had a situation a few years back with drogs and someone else... I forget who.
Well the manager should say who the designated penalty taker is. AND the Captain should enforce the decision and let the players know who IS taking the penalty.
I will gladly pay for Barkley's plane ticket and moving expenses if any rumors of him leaving start occurring.
I think part of Barkley’s problem is that he has always believed some of his own hype. I’m not as angry about this as you are, but Frank’s inexperience is clearly a problem, as some of us expected it to be.
Lampard! But Lampard told Drogba to ******** off and took it himself. Last game of the season the year we won the title under Carlo - Drogba was going for the golden boot.
This isn't about the missed pen, but if Ross is the answer to the question, we're asking the wrong question. To me, Pedro was poor and bringing on Giroud for an aerial threat just doesn't make that much sense especially when our best moves where when we were direct. Mount has great movement and while he isn't perfect he adds that goal threat that neither Jorginho and Kovacic do. Losing him hurts. On the pen, GTFO with that Ross. Two proven penalty takers and a sub takes it.....
That's actually a good point. he should have replaced Pedro with either Ross or Puli* because he was contributing almost nothing except, on occasion, losing the ball or running into blind alleys. * Well... puli, obviously as it turned out.
I tend not to get too upset over things that happen during the flow of the game but stuff like that presses my buttons. It did before when kepa refused to be subbed out. There should be no ambiguity on things like this. I hope it is inexperience. The alternative is that frank (a players gaffer) has opted to let the players sort it out themselves which would concern me more as it's not a tactic I like for obvious reasons. A season of growth it is and still quite a lot to learn for many parties. The awful distribution from several players didnt help today.
Really? Lamps? Was that the one where Micheal Essien was pulling his shirt over his head and laughing in embarrassment Good days Well, better than today, anyway
That is more of an English thing to do, and what you might expect a "player manager" to do - another reason I wasn't that high on the idea of hiring Frank. That it leads to Ross Barkley taking the penalty is the reason that it's a bad idea. The gall to decide that you, Ross Barkley, are going to take the penalty over a player who starts for Brazil is quite impressive, if it weren't such a good encapsulation of Ross Barkley because he missed it. Between the substitutions, the decision to take off Zouma (despite comfortably controlling the game) for Giroud to play a formation we've not yet used in a game (which left us with the Kovacic and Jorginho pivot we all know and love) and bringing on Barkley, this was a particularly poor Frank performance.
Yeah it was Lamps. Drogba wanted it ensure he won the golden boot. But the game was hanging in balance so Lampard took it. Drogba took the one after it so worked out well for everyone.
Just talking about the PK and the guy is saying that the delay in getting it would have played a part in the confidence of the guy taking it and that would be the case REGARDLESS of who it was. So it was a ridiculous decision by the guy. But, obviously, having said all that... if he knocks it in, we're not having this discussion.