If James Vincent (Terry's publically declared first choice) is to be out injured for a while, who should assume the mantle of our spot-kick taker?

I don't see why Aaron Doran couldn't step up! I think he'd be excellent - a wee 'faint' on the run-up, then effortlessly guiding it passed the already commited 'keeper!

 

Anyway, for the record, here's the list of our current squad's players' records from 12 yards. (in chronological order order from left to right,  i.e. Billy has missed his most recent 3) - still not too shabby, 7 from 10, but I agree with Terry, 3 misses in-a-row means it's time to step aside.

But I'd have no qualms about Billy stepping-up and taking one if we had a shoot-out against Dundee United in the League Cup quarter-final!

 

Richie Foran  X X Y     

Graeme Shinnie Y Y Y X    

Aoran Doran Y       

Ross Draper Y       

Billy McKay Y Y Y Y Y Y Y X X X

James Vincent Y       

 

 

Penalties and direct free kicks we are awful at. No idea who the solution to penalties is, but I wasnt confident of scoring as soon as Nick walked up - no disrepect to him but tking pens is about confidence and attitude and IMO the only player we have in the squad like that is Foran just now, hopefully Vincent when he is back can step up, if not I'd like to see someone like Raven have a blast.

Meekings to break the net!

Maybe, Yogi could gives a chance to McKay or Doran. 

So whats the problem with letting Nick continue. Penalty taking is an art that requires a lot of courage. I admire Nick for stepping to the plate and dont see any reason why he shouldnt continue. His penalty yesterday was saved. He's taken three, had three on target and scored two. During yesterdays game the team had 12 shot with 8 on target and scored 1. That makes Nicks penalty taking record better than the teams goal scoring record. Dont break his confidence. Encourage him and maybe he'll become the best penalty taker we've ever seen.

So whats the problem with letting Nick continue. Penalty taking is an art that requires a lot of courage. I admire Nick for stepping to the plate and dont see any reason why he shouldnt continue.

Maybe it's something to do with the fact that none of his penalties have been well taken. The one against Hibs was poorly taken, with the keeper getting a fairly strong hand on it. The Morton one was much like yesterdays, just the keeper luckily dived the wrong way.

Just because the last two went in, doesn't mean they were well taken and continuing with him just so his confidence doesn't suffer, could in the end backfire for both him and the club.

Edited January 13, 201412 yr by Renegade

With the semi-final coming up, I hope the entire squad are getting some penalty practice in.

 

Based on Sneckboy's stats above, we have an overall success rate of 70%. That equates to scoring 3.5 of our 5 penalties in a shoot-out, which is unlikely to be enough.

If we dont beat the current Hearts team in 90 mins then we dont deserve to be in a final. Penalties or no.

Well it took Motherwell (6 wins in a row and a better team than us) a flukey deflection to beat them on Saturday.

if only curtis allan was still here.

What's Dean Brill like from the spot ?

 

Some of you will remember the Scot Ray Stewart who played for West Ham in the 80s.  He scored 81 of 86 penalties in his career and simply ran up and hit the ball as hard as he could.  Both feet were off the ground when the ball ripped into the back of the net.  All the keepers knew what he was going to do but there was nothing they could do but hope that they managed to get a bit a bit of their body in the way and not be maimed by doing so.

Growing up in Scotland you got a brief snippet or two of the English matches at the end of Sportscene, which, for all you youngsters, was much better than it is now, if only because the football on show was good enough to compete with the English games back then.

So we were aware of Ray Stewart all right, but his equivalent in Scotland was Tommy Gemmell who used the same tactics, even just blasting it right up the middle sometimes, and scored 31/34 for Celtic, in addition to a rasper from open play against Inter in the 1967 EC final. I'm sure nobody actually saved the other three, they probably just missed the target!

Not to pick on Ross, but he has hardly any shot power, as his goalscoring record, or lack of, attests. You want somebody who can generate power effortlessly without much backswing, otherwise the goalie can read the run up. Do we have anyone like that in our squad now?

 

We used to have the likes of Thommo, Gollie, Hart, Wilson, Mann, Rankin etc who could score long distance piledrivers, but now we hardly ever see it. Did we used to do more shooting practice in the old days? The last time I can remember us scoring from a direct free kick was Gavin Morrison away to Ayr in the first division. It's a shortcoming we definitely need to do something about.

Greg Tansey, if we get him on loan, is another who has that sort of dead ball ability.

To me penalty taking is an art - I was a regular penalty taker and only ever missed one. It is all about practice and making your mind up before hitting it. We should be getting the preferred players to practice, practice, practice. The one person who really impressed me with his dead ball deliveries was Williams - and he is our only player to me that looks fluent.

Apart from power, another attribute for a penalty is accuracy.  Rooney had a great record of penalty kicks and whilst the keepers always knew it was going low to their right they could never get there.  He was always so accurate with his placement and hit it firmly, but not so hard that he lost control of where it was going.  That's a rare skill which not many have.  But if you mix it up a bit so the keeper is genuinely guessing then you have more margin for error. 

 

A success rate of 80% shouldn't be an unreasonable ask. In the EPL from the start of season 2002/3 to the present, 79% of all penalties have been scored.  Sneckboy's figures above suggest we are around 70% so we really should be doing a little better in this department 

I think Shinnie would do a better job. He's always fairly confident of taking a dig from an opportunistic area so I think he's got the mentality to step up. his previous record is good enough. 3 in 4.

Actually just seen the highlights, and while the penalty lacked accuracy. Was a good height for keeper and too central. It was well enough struck. Keeper goes the other way and it's call a confidently struck penalty by Ross.

I agree!

I disagree, it was guff.

was a poor pen nice height and to central needs to hit it in the corners with pace

If Ross confidently placed that penalty then he's not a penalty taker.  I'd actually give the penalties back to Mckay, he was on a good run before he missed 3, i'm sure he's been practicing them again since.

Mckay was a poor penalty taker.  Apart from his misses, quite a few others were poorly hit and lucky to go in. I wouldn't want to see him back as our penalty taker.

All McKay's penalties were the same that's why he missed 3 in a row - he got found out.

 

I think Nick's penalty was very poor, perfect height and close to the keeper and not enough power.

 

I would prefer Meekings, Warren, Tremarco to take them.  In that order.

Just hit the bloody thing.  Hard.  Very, very hard.

Penalties taken for Inverness. (Last: Nick Ross (miss) v. Dundee United 12th Jan 2014)

 

Aoran Doran (100%) Y Y   

James Vincent (100%) Y

Greg Tansey (100%) Y

Ross Draper (100%) Y     

Graeme Shinnie (75%) Y Y Y X

Billy McKay (70%) Y  Y  Y  Y  Y  Y  Y  X  X  X

Nick Ross (67%) Y Y X

Richie Foran (33%) X X Y  

 

 

 

 

 

You either need to hit a penalty in the bottom or top corners (top a bit more risky) and with plenty of pace. Do that and the keeper has no chance