[jambutty]

As much as I agree with you about your view on penalties shillelagh, if you don’t know how to take a penalty in the first place then the pressure just gives you another problem.

This:

You can practice taking penalties until the cows come home but its still totally different when it comes down to taking them during the match or the shoot outs.

is just an excuse and a pretty lame one at that in preparation for when a penalty is missed. But our lot trotted up and tried to side foot the ball past the goalkeeper. I ask you side foot a penalty? Don’t they know how to kick a dead ball hard? Obviously not! I mean its not as if the ball is particularly hard. They should try taking a penalty with the old type leather ball. So they should learn and practice over and over until they got it right and it became second nature.

The pressure on Beckham taking a free kick is not too much different than that in taking a penalty in a penalty shoot out. It is probably even greater because he has a mass of defenders between him and the goalmouth and somehow he has to get the ball over the wall, get it to dip under the bar whilst at the same time avoiding the goalkeeper. As I said he practiced for hours as a youth until he got it right time after time after time. When it came to the real thing he was confident that he could do the business and only had the pressure to worry about. You could see from his face that his concentration was total and pressure didn’t even get a look in.

I can only hope that the new boss has got the bottle to do what is necessary and build for Euro 2008 and beyond and not pander to the clammering of the press.

We need the best team that is available not the best 11 players.

Whilst they are in the practicing mood they could try practicing to trap a ball and kill it dead with one touch, learn how to head a ball in a particular direction rather than just somewhere and pass with accuracy. Far too many passes go astray although the commentator usually says it has been intercepted. Well maybe that does happen some times but most times the pass is a bad one. Finally instead of waiting for the pass to arrive go to meet it then it won’t be intercepted.

The bottom line for me is simply if we have the ball the opposition cannot score unless we do it for them.