Kyogo’s off-target attempt at a penalty kick on Sunday brought into focus a concern we should have ahead of the Scottish Cup semi-final later this month. Josip Juranovic started the season as our designated penalty taker, with Giorgos Giakoumakis his deputy. Neither are still at the club, meaning Aaron Mooy was promoted from third to first choice.
Aaron has done well from the spot. When he was unavailable, Jota stepped forward. The Portuguese only just evaded David Marshall’s arm with his first attempt, before dinking his second penalty down the middle. Neither left me with much comfort.
If we are faced with a penalty kick competition in 10 days’ time, and Mooy and Jota are both on the field after 120 minutes – which is unlikely – we have to hope that Kyogo is also on the field and spends much of the time between now and then practising. Your guess is as good as mine as to who would hit the fourth and fifth penalties.
In short, our third-choice penalty taker from the start of the season is now our top man. He is recovering from injury and unlikely to last 120 minutes. Ange invariably changes his forwards during the second half and would almost certainly swap out Kyogo and Jota in an attempt to win the game before extra-time completes.
If the game goes to penalties, responsibility is likely to land on novices, some of whom have low expectations of playing right now, and remember, the other side get a lot more practice taking them than we do. Celtic would be clear second favourites.
Starting from a low base, we cannot fully resolve this problem, all we can do is spend the next nine days practising from the spot. Lots.
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new article posted.
Honest question – Do rebel songs and IRA chants get sung by any football teams in the Republic? Other than the national anthem and the likes of the Fields (without the add ons), do the Irish national team fans regularly sing IRA songs? I assume they have not forgotten their history and the struggles and the troubles that led to present-day Ireland?
I understand our history and the importance of remembering it but all the sad orange b stuff has nothing to do with that. We also have a huge and inspiring song book that celebrates our footballing history that I thought always differentiated us from the other lot.
My observation was that over the last 20 years, the rebel songs had become a small part of our fans repertoire until newco arrived and built their business model around the lowest common denominator of hate. That fanned the flames and has been responded to in kind by an element of our support.