No Gray Areas - Rooney must ditch run-up
I'm probably not the right person to be talking about other people's penalties! During my career I took just five (I did score four of them if you're wondering) and that was due to a combination of always having other great penalty takers at the club and me just not fancying it. Give me a ball in motion any day of the week rather than a spot kick.
That said, I sometimes wish I had taken more as my career goals tally would have been considerably higher! Some players call them freebies and you can see why...
I'm not entirely convinced by Wayne Rooney's new penalty run-up but I'm not so sure he'll be trying it again. It worked against Rangers but he had a bit of a shocker against Arsenal.
Luckily for him, it didn't make a difference in the end but I said in the post-match analysis already that it's a little bit odd. I'm sure he'll step up to take the next one but maybe he should go back to the run-up that served him so well last year.
We've been lucky to see some pretty good penalty takers in the Premier League over the years. Frank Lampard has missed a couple recently but his record is very good and Eric Cantona was deadly as well.
But the gold medal must go to Matt Le Tissier, who only ever missed one and he'd probably tell you that was one too many! Not only did they always find the back of the net but he had this incredible knack of always sending the keeper the wrong way in the process.
A brownie point is on offer to the first person who can (without Googling!) tell us who saved the one and only penalty 'Le Tiss' missed...
Andy Gray is now on Twitter so follow him for his exclusive tips and his take on the biggest stories in football each week.
Published: 20 Dec 2010

jez (December 28, 2010 7:39 PM) said:
mark crossley