We Must Improve!

[Wilson19]

We are a strong team but we have always seemed to have had a weakness with penalties excluding Lampard, Ballack, Drogba and few others. After tonight's perfromance I am not too surprised after going out. Fair enought, we didn't have our strongest team but it was still a strong team capable of beating Blackburn in normal time! I feel somewhat let down but I am not going to lose the faith in the mighy blues! Yes, it is a diddy cup but a trophy is a trophy and we should be in the semis. The main point however, we must improve on penalties! I know we have been unlucky in penalties but I feel we should be doing better as we are amongst one of the best teams in the world.

Opinions? I know a lot of people say penalties is down to luck which can be true but we should do better at them anyway.

[deg0ey]

To summarise what I am about to say (as it's quite late and people may not want to read more than a couple of lines): You're wrong.

We are a strong team, this is correct, however, we don't have a particular weakness with penalties. Given how often a penalty shootout is required (rarely) we are at least as good as most other teams. We also have one of the better penalty stoppers in the league (in the world?) in Petr Cech. Any penalty shootout is going to have a reasonable amount of luck involved, with regards to whether the keeper goes the right way, etc, and unfortunately in recent times a couple of shootouts have gone against us.

Our team tonight was definitely not our strongest team, and I would even hesitate to call it a strong team - I for one expected us to lose this evening from the moment I read the team sheet. I would say my main issue with the team was that our defence consisted of 3 right backs and a left winger. However, I entirely understand where Ancelotti was coming from. Having played the Arse a few days ago, and with City in a few days time, there was no way he could do anything but rest pretty much all of his players, which unfortunately didn't leave us with a great number of options. I think people would have something different to say if we played a full strength side this evening, but then got beaten on Saturday because everyone is too tired and off the pace.

At the end of the day, we have shown that our 'reserve' side (8 changes to the starting lineup since we played the arse) is almost as good as Blackburn's first team, and if we're honest with ourselves, we don't really care about the League Cup anyway.

[Granticus]

All I have to say is that some people are never happy. Our previous shoot out before this was a victorious one, win some, lose some.

Edited December 3, 2009 by Granticus

[german-blue]

We also have one of the better penalty stoppers in the league (in the world?) in Petr Cech.

Are you serious ? Cech is just plain awful on pens imo

[deg0ey]

*shrug* maybe I'm just remembering favourably because I really like the guy...

[PloKoon13]

Cudicini always gave penalty takers something to worry about. Cech saves the odd couple, but he hasn't quite got Carlo's success rate.

[evissy]

I am surprised we didn't play with a younger and more experienced side. CC is waste of time IMO. Lets keep our eyes on bigger prizes than this cocacolacup.

Hate to see us lose but this was for the better.

We definetly need to practice penalties. Cech and the players. 15mins after every training session. Shouldn't be so hard. There are brilliant goalies and players who are professional at penalties so it tells we can improve.