Celtic avoid paying the penalty
Hoops spot kick misery continues
When fans moan about penalty kicks, it is usually the fact that referees aren’t giving them that is the big problem. For Celtic fans, there is this fact and the issue that they are missing a lot of penalties.
Charlie Richmond may have turned a blind eye to two stonewall penalty claims for the Glasgow side before he gave one but with Barry Robson missing his spot kick, the referee gets away with his bad decisions. If you are missing penalties, can you moan too much about not getting them?
The tales of Celtic’s penalties so far this season have been:
Two scored out of five is not a good ratio although out of the three missed, only the Aiden McGeady penalty at Falkirk saw Celtic drop points. It has been noticable though that all of Celtic’s misses have been of a similar nature.
Any penalty hit at a reasonable height for a goalkeeper is going to put the kicker in trouble. A failure to put any great pace on the shot means that if the keeper guesses the direction right, they have a very strong chance of stopping it.
At the moment, placed penalties aren’t working and having the confidence to smash the ball hard and high looks to be the best way of scoring penalties.
Boss Tony Mowbray appears to have had enough;
“That’s three or four we have missed and now it is an issue in my mind,”
“We need to nominate a penalty taker now and I want to see him practising in training every day so there is a confidence about it.
“It will be a joint discussion. So far I have allowed the players on the field to decide who is feeling good about themselves, to take it. But you can’t keep missing penalties because one of these days in a big, big game it is going to hurt us.
“So we have to make sure that when the opportunities come along we have someone we all have faith in to stick it in the top corner.”
Of course, in addition to the two penalties that Richmond decided Celtic didn’t deserve today, Celtic have been denied a number of penalties throughout the season so far.
Against Dundee United at home, Darren Dods was allowed to play basketball in the box in injury time as Celtic stuttered to a 1-1 draw.
Against Hearts, Niall McGinn appeared to be pulled down in the box late on as Celtic toiled to overcome Hearts.
There was also the game at Ibrox where Craig Thomson decided against giving Celtic more than the one penalty during the game. Even Motherwell boss Jim Gannon felt it necessary to point out the bad decisions in this match.
However, every SPL fan will be able to reel out a list of bad refereeing decisions against them so Celtic fans can’t moan too much. Not when their players are unable to confidently strike the ball home.
Kris Boyd at Rangers is a confident penalty taker and although he is a figure of fun for many opposition fans, there is no debating his deadliness in the box.
Celtic fans, who do you want to see take your next penalty?
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Id like to see the ratio between Celtic and Rangers as to who gets penalties denied,Id confidently say that Celtic are denied far more and on top of that Rangers also are gifted very soft pens no one else in the league would get,with this in mind is it any wonder Celtic have a bad record of converting them as we never get as much practise when it actually matters.
Referees in Scotland seem to work on a 1 in 3 basis for penalties where Celtic are concerned,some will call this paranoia but its simply just sad fact.
It was interesting to hear Ally Johnson’s cry for help by saying it was vital Rangers won the SPL in their recent AGM.
That cry has not gone unnoticed and neither has the factual evidence of it.
Some coaching by Tommy Gemmell or Bobby Lennox should do the trick!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!