Before I start on where we are going wrong I accept football is a game of opinions and this not about criticising individuals.
We have missed the vast majority of our penalties this season, that's a fact!
Numerous players have failed to convert, even Martin who has scored has a poor conversion rate, fact!
I believe Reading has a similar shocking record to ours but are penalties being saved across pro football more often than in the past? I have no facts to prove this but IMO it seems that way, so maybe the days of a very high success rate are gone.
Keepers can now move sideways before the kick, are more athletic, taller and better prepared than ever before, these are facts but I also believe refs are more lenient allowing movement forward by the keepers but that's an opinion.
The kickers conditions have improved with a lighter ball and better pitch to take it on but IMO the keeper has improved his chances slightly in recent times.
Some might say the pressure to score is greater nowadays as well and keepers having more belief, certainly than in the past when a goal was seen as almost guaranteed.
So, even if I believe scoring a penalty kick is not as simple as before our record still stinks and needs analysing and improving.
A successful penalty taker has always been about confidence and sound technique and that's not changed but with the gains made by keepers its more important the ever.
I'm not going to describe the perfect penalty because different players will do what works for them, players need to recognise what keepers can do today but its still about either out foxing them or shooting hard enough and far enough away from the keeper. That's obvious I know but Martins (like so many of ours this season) was neither one or the other, not the worst I've seen but he scuffed it, it wasn't hard enough and not close enough to the post.
Most importantly (my opinion) he wasn't in control of the situation, didn't look confident, shaped to shoot left and did and if he had been in control he would have seen the keeper move early and guided the ball in the other side!
What I'm trying to say is we need a player who is calm enough to manage the whole penalty kick better from the moment he picks the ball up to the moment he kicks it. The way some of our players play you'd think we have a few but that's not been proved correct, its become a lottery and while its nice to be handed a free ticket its unlikely to be a winning one.
Its not just about practice its in the head and that's why good penalty takers come in all shapes and sizes but I cant see one among the present lot!
Even just blasting it would be more successful than our current rate of failure but its likely to let you down at times.
The answer is having a player who has self belief coupled with sound technique, nothing new there but nowadays they have to copy the keepers who have worked out how to benefit from the marginal gains they use to reduce the chance elements and be mentally switched on through out the process.
Like the ruby conversion in front of the posts, the penalty kicker is holding all the best cards, if he fails its generally down to preparation and that's generally in his head!
Time for the sports Psychiatrist.
OK but I don't think there is a lot of difference from the past. I bet Langley, Lock and certainly Tosh would find the net from the spot more often than not. Also McCormack made it look easy last season.
The hard fact is we have a team of nice ball players without an outstanding shot among the lot of them. It is not only from the spot that our shooting is below par.
The basic requirement is to hit the ball hard enough. All our misses are because the hit was not good enough.
I have also thought that refs don't penalise keepers for moving like they used to - this often caused a pen to be retaken. Has there been a rule change? Keepers do seem to move before the ball is struck, anyway.
Hard and low is pretty effective usually, as Stu says, but a pen taker lacking confidence often seems to hit the ball too softly, for fear of not hitting the target.
For me, it's a confidence issue. Berba and Ross were two who never seemed to miss, and they had that touch of arrogance and self- belief, and knew exactly what they were going to do when they stepped up.
No pro player should miss a pen or have it saved, but it seems to happen a fair amount these days. Keeper moving plays a part I think, and lack of confidence as far as Fulham is concerned - and this lack of confidence also shows in all the chances we create but don't take.
The penalty misses show we don't have a natural goalscorer in the side or someone with a very cool head, ideally someone with both attributes.
For open play we need to fill that goal scorer slot and that might help with the penalties.
I thought as Martin set it up that he should go for a top corner but that takes guts as there's the chance of hitting it too high. A keeper can get to either bottom corner from where he stands as it's taken but not to the top ones.
I wonder whether penalty conversions is a factor in Stats. Boys programme. If notit certainly needs to be considered for our next signing.
There's no doubt that we are currently suffering from a period of notably incompetent penalty taking.
However, I feel our perspective is a bit affected by the preceding period of rather impressive penalty taking.
Since the start of the PL (and I presume Championship stats are similar) some 1900 penalties have been awarded of which just over 1600 have been converted. That's a miss rate of about 16%.
McCormack had a miss rate of 0% for us (scored 8 out of 8) although his career miss rate is a much less impressive 25.5% (scored 26 out of 35). In other words McCormack is a below average penalty taker.
Berbatov was one of the top penalty takers. He missed 0% for us (6 out of 6) although career-wise he did manage to miss 2 out of 24 (8%)
Murphy only missed 2 (one of which he then put away) for us out of 19 and they were the only ones he missed out of a career total of 28 taken (7%).
Compared to this luxury Martin has scored 15 of the 23 kicks he has taken which is a pretty weak miss rate of around 34%.
Maybe we shouldn't expect too much of him...or find another penalty taker.
SLav said in his after match press conference that Martin will take the next one
Funny this season as we dont get 8 a season normally and when we do we mis um,sods law!
Quote from: cmg on January 22, 2017, 05:42:32 PM
There's no doubt that we are currently suffering from a period of notably incompetent penalty taking.
However, I feel our perspective is a bit affected by the preceding period of rather impressive penalty taking.
Since the start of the PL (and I presume Championship stats are similar) some 1900 penalties have been awarded of which just over 1600 have been missed/saved. That's a miss rate of about 16%.
McCormack had a miss rate of 0% for us (scored 8 out of 8) although his career miss rate is a much less impressive 25.5% (scored 26 out of 35). In other words McCormack is a below average penalty taker.
Berbatov was one of the top penalty takers. He missed 0% for us (6 out of 6) although career-wise he did manage to miss 2 out of 24 (8%)
Murphy only missed 2 (one of which he then put away) for us out of 19 and they were the only ones he missed out of a career total of 28 taken (7%).
Compared to this luxury Martin has scored 15 of the 23 kicks he has taken which is a pretty weak miss rate of around 34%.
Maybe we shouldn't expect too much of him...or find another penalty taker.
excellent post
Quote from: cmg on January 22, 2017, 05:42:32 PM
Since the start of the PL (and I presume Championship stats are similar) some 1900 penalties have been awarded of which just over 1600 have been missed/saved. That's a miss rate of about 16%.
Please tell me this is a typo! Or else that is an 84% MISS RATE!!
Also, Matt Me Tissier, although never played for us, scored 47 out of 48 Pens. A strike rate of 98%!! The only one he missed was to a future FULHAM FC Keeper. A tenuous link I know (Mark Crossley)!
the thing is, not just that we fail to convert the peanlties, but they are totally useless
when woodrow missed the howl for his blood went up and he was never heard of again... but none of the rest have done any better and all our players seem to adopt the same second rate penalty style.
#
#it is said over and over that a penalty has to be hit hard, very hard... even if you occasionally miss the target at least the ones on target are more likely to go in.
the best penalty taker we had IMO was Blake, i think he only missed one but his technoque was amazing. he never did the same thing varying the place he put them, but i think he decided what had to be done and did it.... murf was good, just hard and on target, lock was imense... but berba's technique defied explanation, it was amazing but heart stpping and other than him i wouldn't recommend that style ever!
it isn't the stats that are bad it is the total lack of technique and whilst i love joca, i think he and his coaching staff need to teach the players what to do i.e. hit the dam thing as hard as possible and if possible at the top corner!
Quote from: Fulham Tup North on January 22, 2017, 09:16:23 PM
Quote from: cmg on January 22, 2017, 05:42:32 PM
Since the start of the PL (and I presume Championship stats are similar) some 1900 penalties have been awarded of which just over 1600 have been missed/saved. That's a miss rate of about 16%.
Please tell me this is a typo! Or else that is an 84% MISS RATE!!
Yes. Now corrected. The miss rate is as stated.
Interesting to hear Murphy on MoD2 say that he was advised that if you got a penalty late in a game you should always hit it down the middle (a la Sanchez) as keepers will always dive one way or the other trying to make the great late save and it would take a really brave keeper to just stand still at that stage of the game.
As for keepers moving, I thought they were allowed to move sideways these days but not step forward until the ball has been struck. Although refs rarely seem to pull them up for it.
Also lets remember that while the goal has stayed the same size the players in them are getting bigger.
I think an important factor is that we have missed 3 pens against Alex Smithies.
He has faced 10 this season and saved 6.. I think it is less a reflection on our Pen takers and more so on his ability between the sticks. As a keeper I have always rated him since his days at Huddersfield. If we were to go up and QPR to stay in the Champ I would make him a priority (wouldn't have to up sticks!)
Re the discussion on this re goalkeeper. He can move side to side bu cannot move forward until th kick has been taken. And yes refs miss it far too often , IMO the linesman should be brought in closer to observe this and also the gross encroachment which happen at every single penalty.the laws are very clear on this also.
Quote from: bobbo on January 23, 2017, 09:37:53 AM
Re the discussion on this re goalkeeper. He can move side to side bu cannot move forward until th kick has been taken. And yes refs miss it far too often , IMO the linesman should be brought in closer to observe this and also the gross encroachment which happen at every single penalty.the laws are very clear on this also.
I think that this is very important.
In the past the keeper couldn't move at all until the ball was kicked - now they not only wave their arms about to put the taker off, but move sideways in anticipation of where the ball is going. This suits the likes of Berbatov, who feint and send the keeper the wrong way, but does lead to a lot more pen saves I think.
In the past refs enforced the 'no moving until the ball is kicked' law strictly - and this gives the taker a far greater chance of scoring.
Agree ray I also think they shouldn't move at all till the ball kicked but we have live with these changes eh.
Quote from: FulhamStu on January 22, 2017, 12:48:16 PM
The basic requirement is to hit the ball hard enough. All our misses are because the hit was not good enough.
Absolutely true of any penalty unless you have that amazing ability of getting the goalie to commit before you kick the ball. Of all the penalty takers I have seen for Fulham, Jimmy Langley is the one who sticks in my mind as a sorcerer of goalie-goes-the-wrong-way proportions. I wish I knew how he did it.
At the end of the day, we have missed our penalties because our penalty taker striked the ball poorly. The pens were poor, not struck hard enough, no excuses, because of the poor execution of these pens, it has given the opposing keepers who are practicing these situations in training, and are aware of which side or down the middle the taker will hit the ball, have a good chance of saving them, and all credit to them when they do.
In theory at least a right footed player has much more chance of scoring to the keeper's left than he has to scoring to the keeper's right because of the trajectory of the ball, and vice versa, but whatever happens, and unless you can get the keeper to commit before you hit it, you must strike the ball with such force it beats the keeper for pure speed. There is an interesting scholarly article on penalties here http://www.bases.org.uk/Psychological-Preparation-for-Football-Penalty-Shootouts (http://www.bases.org.uk/Psychological-Preparation-for-Football-Penalty-Shootouts)
My Sunday team penalty taker strikes the ball so hard the goalkeepers catch pneumonia from the draught as it flies past them, and he can do it left or right side, I cannot remember him ever missing, and he plays for fun.
Fulham have 11 full time proffesionals on the pitch, and you can't tell me that at least one of them isn't capable of converting a decent penalty 9 times out of 10.
I think you have to be able to vary which side you are going to put the ball. Keepers note which way is a players favoured side and that gives them a big advantage. If you can put it either side you have the advantage. Martin put it in the same place last week and decided to go the same way again
Being one of the more skillful players in my over 55 team in Massachusetts, the lads wanted me to take penalties until.....I missed the last 3. State final, 1-1, penalties (we are too old for extra time) I take the 5th, sweetly struck but grazed the top of the bar. Previously, scuffed one a bit, ref said take it again because he did not give the signal. Put it in the opposite corner, top right and keeper (very tall) made a great save. That;s it for me. No more volunteering for penalties.
We were always told to either welly it - hard and low, or place it, which needs more skill and confidence. Even if you hit it straight down the middle hard and low, you still have a good chance of scoring, because the keeper will probably dive to one side or the other.
On Saturday Martin tried to place it, as he did against Barnsley, but hit it too soft, and the keeper went the right way - unlike against Barnsley. But he hit it too softly, and seemed indecisive when he stepped up, which is fatal.
I do think it makes a difference that the keeper can now move in anticipation, unlike in the days of Langley and Mullery- though they certainly knew how to hit a ball hard and accurately.
I think Slavisa is right to keep faith with Martin, though - he seems the best of our present pen takers.
I have no problem with Martin continueing to take penalties, as long as he learns from Saturday's dissapointing attempt to convert his penalty, and as long as he doesn't make a dogs dinner out of the next one.
I seem to remember some while ago there was an experiment in which Bobby Charlton (who always wellied them) took penalties against Gordon Banks in the days when keepers couldn't move. pre-striking.
It showed that if he didn't move early, the time it took the ball to pass him was less then the reaction time Banks had to see where it was going and move - so as long as it wasn't going at him and was inside the goal frame he basically could never save it. Being able to move has changed that dynamic obviously but would suggest that it is still better to belt it and hope the goalie doesn't get lucky because he can only get in it's way not actually save it.
Quote from: RaySmith on January 23, 2017, 01:01:23 PM
On Saturday Martin tried to place it, as he did against Barnsley, but hit it too soft, and the keeper went the right way - unlike against Barnsley. But he hit it too softly, and seemed indecisive when he stepped up, which is fatal.
I think you are right about Martin's preparation. Against Barnsley he had a point to prove and the venom was in the strike of the ball. On Saturday it seemed business as usual. I hope SJ sticks with Martin as penalty taker and gets him to teach himself how to psyche himself up before he places the ball.
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