Filed under: Tottenham, Premier League, Football
It is the simplest job in football, apparently, one that every striker wants - yet it causes so many problems, especially in England.Why do some players wilt when they have a free shot at goal from 12 yards with only the goalkeeper in front of them?
Penalties have been the downfall of England at five major tournaments, when the national team has exited following yet another shootout failure. And this season, the challenge of mastering both nerve and technique from the spot is proving to be beyond too many Tottenham players.
Jermain Defoe's miss in Spurs' victory over Lievrpool triggered a jovial response from manager Harry Redknapp, who has seen Rafael van der Vaart, Gareth Bale and Roman Pavlyuchenko miss from the spot already this season.
"I was hoping he'd score and I was happy with him taking it," Redknapp told The Sun newspaper: "Where do you find a penalty taker? It might be an idea for the ref just to give a goal-kick. You could do with someone just smashing it down the middle, putting their boot behind it."
Redknapp may appear light-hearted about the issue, but his side's penalty difficulties could have proved costly last year when another Defoe miss cost them victory at Everton.
Had another couple of results not gone Tottenham's way, that penalty could have been the difference between the Champions League or Europa League. Or, as things have turned out, the opportunity for Bale to run Inter Milan ragged in the San Siro compared to a unglamorous trip some somewhere far more mundane.
This isn't simply a recent trend. Tom Huddlestone and Robbie Keane also missed last season, before this season's four failures.
Fortunately, the misses this season have come in matches Spurs have ended up winning, so Redknapp can afford to make a joke about it. If they had cost his team points, it would be a very different matter.
There's no doubt redknapp's side are likely to practise penalties this week. It was revealed last season that they rarely took them in training but that changed after Huddlestone's miss against Bolton.
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