Don't goals from penalties count anymore?

I must have missed the rule change. The reason I ask is that whenever a critic of a player wishes to play down his goal contribution, it's always used in a derogatory manner. Currently it's Conor Hourihane that's suffering, but Brian Howard copped for it in the past, too. As did Darren Barnard & Bruce Dyer. However, it doesn't follow that once a penalty has been awarded, it automatically means a goal will be scored. In fact, some of the best players I've seen play for Barnsley have missed them. For example, Craig Hignett, Neil Redfearn, Darren Barnard, Ashley Ward and the greatest player of them all, Ronnie Glavin.
I've never seen any player at Barnsley who didn't have a weakness within their game, an area that needed to be worked on. But it seems that once these critics have a player within their sights, there's nothing the lad can do to avoid derision. No matter that none of his team mates can match his contributions. It's convenient to ignore these. Better still, play down the positives and over exaggerate what they perceive to be his weaknesses. Anyone who disagrees with them can be subjected to scorn and, at times, puerile & personal name calling.
Perhaps we ought to be signing a team of perfect players. Those who win every tackle, never misplace a pass, put in a perfect delivery every time from a dead ball situation, score with every attempt at goal. They're obviously ten a penny, especially in the third tier, and we should be capable of bringing them to the club(!)
Sorry for the Monday morning rant, but I see nothing wrong with a Barnsley fan backing a Barnsley player, enjoying his contributions, accepting his failings & acknowledging that all players have off days.





And breathe.

 

Hmm Out wrong side of bed this morning?

 

My personal favourite is when someone is labelled a happy clapper because they choose not to spend all day on the internet slating everything about the club they support.

 

I'm taking the dogs out now and I'll boo at all the birds singing in the trees!

 

Please send this memo to Ben and LJ. Loans and good youngsters pffffft. We need football cyborgs!

 

Yer daft bugger!

 

I'll start by saying this is not me being critical of Hourihane, just addressing the penalties point in general...

From a team's point of view a goal is a goal, and all are of equal importance whether they are penalties, 35 yard screamers or mazy McCourt dribbles. But when assessing a player's contribution to the team, all goals aren't equal, and penalties are the most irrelevant and potentially obfuscating aspect of this.

Whilst I can't argue with the fact that the player has to score the penalty once it is awarded, I doubt there is a professional midfielder/striker in the football leagues who, over a large sample size, would miss more penalties than they score. Scoring penalties is not an amazingly valuable aspect of being a footballer - if the penalty taker wasn't available chances are whoever takes it in his place would score anyway.

Therefore if a "goalscoring midfielder" scored 15 goals in a season, 10 of them penalties, his return looks very good but in terms of what he offers to the team the "goals scored" statistic is potentially misleading. I think everyone would agree they'd take a striker who scored 20 goals from open play over a striker who scored 25 with 10 of them being penalties.

As I said this is not me trying to have a go at Hourihane, just commenting on the penalty aspect.

 

What I find hilarious about the people who are discounting penalties, is that they forget to look at who won said penalty. Hourihane earned some of them himself, when he may otherwise have scored from open play if he hadn't been scythed down. The same goes with the other players mentioned in the OP.

 

It seems to me that certain people will never criticise him because he takes set pieces and those who do are absolute morons. Again, had anybody else been taking every set piece, THEY, not CH would have been top assist maker. He has many more weaknesses in game than positives but anybody who talks about them are subjected to scorn and personal name calling.


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Then why hasn't that happened in previous years (that we have scored so many goals from set pieces), as it seems to me that before Hourihane arrived we didn't have other players that could do that. We've gotten so used to our set pieces having a good chance of becoming a goal, that we have forgotten just how bad it was before Conor started taking them. Also, you need to ask yourself why Conor was chosen to take every set piece if other players were just as good/better. Surely they would have shared duties if that was the case?

 

If you're not willing to praise him and acknowledge his strengths, I'm not willing to criticise him and admit to his failings. Just to offer balance.
Also, just because you don't rate him, I've never called you, or anyone else for that matter, an absolute moron and will refrain from personal comments such as "And anyone who thinks he's our best player is a ****ing cheestring." simply for you having the audacity to hold a differing opinion.

 

This CH bashing is getting silly now. He's not the complete footballer, but then again, who is? I think we can all agree that LJ has a problem that he has generated himself, in that he has too many midfielders to shoe horn into a winning team. I commented on Saturday when I saw the team that Scowen appeared to have been moved to RWB just to accommodate Hourihane. I thought it might work - I was wrong.

I would rather see him IN the team than out of it and, the more he plays and gets fit, the better he will become. What we saw last season can happen again.

I just wish some people would stop picking on players with obvious ability. I suppose it's the nature of some football supporters to constantly criticise but it gets boring after a while. I blame the Football Manager/Sky Sports Champions League generation. If a player isn't perfect then he's no good according to them and it's open season on him whenever he puts a foot wrong.

I criticise during the game when I see someone make a bad mistake but I am just as quick to praise and clap them when they do something good. I think our players on Saturday did both of those things in just about equal measures. There were some fantastic passing movements and forward runs. There was some sublime long range and close range passing. Then there were quite a lot of mistakes.

This is Barnsley Football Club we are watching. If you can't accept the ups and downs why bother spending your money? If only there was video available of the John McSeveney or Jim Iley days - watching some of that would cure all this negativity instantly!

 

Hourihane's weaknesses currently out weigh his positives.
There's ability within him but he has to show more consistency with the stronger elements of his game otherwise we cannot afford to carry him like we are at the moment or more poor results will be forthcoming.
If someone offered 500K I would snatch their hands off.
This is a big season for the lad and I'm sure he can be successful if he puts more effort in.

 

We've played a grand total of one game so far. God forbid anyone else has a poor game. it appears that's not allowed any more. Hourihane's positives far outweigh his weaknesses as far as I'm concerned. If all the other players in midfield contribute as many goals and creating of chances as Conor, as well as continuing to do their defensive duties, then Hourihane has no excuse not to do the same. But they don't.

 

I'm not sure whether you actually want to talk about whether players should have two types of goal credited to them (i.e. goals from open play / from penalties), but here goes.

I were a football manager looking to recruit a player and I had the choice, player A or player B - I would of course take their penalty ratio into consideration.

When Fan A says - where would be be without X's 20 goals - it is absolutely appropriate for Fan B to come back with "well - someone else would probably have probably scored (most of) the 10 penalties"

Andy Gray for instance - very few goals from open play. Should we have kept him just because he scores a penalty or two? Not if I was in charge.

Was it right to compare him to other strikers on similar goals scored without reference to the %age penalties and simply say he was equally valuable to the teams results?

Would you for instance pick your second best goal keeper just because he never missed a penalty? Personally I'd pick the best goalie for being a goalie. Every striker should hit the target from the spot. Every time. And make the goalie pull off an acrobatic save. They shouldn't ever be a striker if they can't - and other than Dominic Werling I can't think of ANY player I'd have picked just for his dead ball talents.

Personally I'd change the law back to when it was that the player being fouled was the player to take the penalty and only have a nominated taker for hand balls by the opposition, etc.

However - for me you can keep Andy Gray - however many penalties he scored.

I don't disagree with your sentiment that players bring different things to our game and we should get behind everyone in a red shirt, BUT on the specific point - whilst no-one can ever dismiss a goal scored for a team from a penalty - from a player perspective I think they are a useful indicator of how good you are at football versus how big the traction engine in your right foot is.

 

I appreciate your argument, mate, and it's well presented & debated. I just don't agree that the scoring of penalties should be used as a reason to attack a player's contribution in a negative manner. It rightly never happened to Neil Redfearn when he missed three successive penalties during our promotion season and I don't see why it should with anyone else.

 

Whereas I would look at a player, recognise & appreciate his ability to remain cool and calm when scoring from the penalty spot, even if the moment is fraught with tension and potential repercussions. Good examples of this would be David Beckham's penalty against Argentina in the 2002 World Cup and our penalty shoot out victory over Swansea in 2006.

 

I Think your credibility in debating this subject with anyone just went out of the window with one single post.

 

Penalties, do we get them as well? I thought they were reserved for the likes of Leeds et al.