Penalty record

[Handsome_Devil]

We're currently on some streak with penalties...what have I forgotten?

Stoke - won
Celtic - lost
Morton - won
Clydebank - won
ICT - won
Alloa - lost
Raith - won
Forfar - lost
Hibs - lost
Hamilton - lost
Stranraer - lost
St Mirren - lost

Five wins, seven losses (though the Stranraer one hardly registers tbf).

[Wellup4it]

As soon as it went to a penalty shootout last night I knew we were out.

[LawSteelman]

There's a cliche "penalties are a lottery" but that is not true in my opinion. It takes bottle and nerve to step up there in a sudden death situation and do what is needed. I didn't see the penalties last night but but from what I heard, not only did we miss three, we also missed the target with two of them. That is just pathetic and a sign of a player failing to hold their nerve at the crucial moment. I knew we would lose a penalty shootout because our record in shootouts is historically awful, and our record at scoring penalties at crucial times during matches is also pretty poor as well. I believe that it points to a psychological barrier that we have at the club, the small time mentality that runs right through us. There's always been this mentality that "you can't do this, you're only wee Motherwell" and that is drip, drip, drip fed into everyone at our club and that is what costs us dearly, time and time again.

Put it this way, if those same players played for Hearts and found themselves in the same situation as we did after 120 minutes last night, they would have won that shootout with the same takers. Why? Because Hearts have a winning mentality, the polar opposite of what we have.

It's an aspect of Motherwell FC that I truly and utterly despise.

[Handsome_Devil]

If this board had existed decades ago would you have said we have a big club winning mentality having triumphed in a majority of shoot-outs? You're not seriously suggesting Stranraer or even St Mirren have a big club winning mentality which helped them beat us in a shoot-out? Or do they not have any mentality at all, positive or negative, and just win or lose depending on the opposition?

"our record at scoring penalties at crucial times during matches is also pretty poor as well."

What's our record at scoring penalties at crucial times during matches?

[LawSteelman]

I'm not talking about St.Mirren or Stranraer's mentality, I'm only interested in ours. If you fail to score three penalties in a shootout you're not going to win, so it doesn't matter what mentality the opposition have, we have already made their task easier. So yes, I would say that it does come down to who they are playing and as I said, had St.Mirren been playing Hearts (to use an example) at Tynecastle last night in a Cup match that went to penalties they would not have won. Indeed, put Donnelly, Watt and Hylton in Hearts jerseys last night and they'd all have scored.

I don't have a list of stats for our penalty conversion rate over the years but I've seen us miss plenty of crucial ones at key moments in big games.

Off the top of my head;

- Murphy v Odense in Europe when we were 0-1 down with a few minutes to go.

- O'Brien against Rangers in the 88th minute at 0-0.

- Forbes in the 6-6 Hibs game

- Higdon, normally so reliable, missing against Aberdeen in a Cup Quarter Final at a crucial stage of the game

- Tom Hateley missing one at Parkhead in the 80th minute with the score at 0-0.

All of those, every single one of them, cost us either points or progression/potential progression in big cup matches.

We don't have an iota of bottle at our club. Not one.

[Handsome_Devil]

So you've no idea what our big moment penalty record is but announce it's poor like a fact, righto

[jwok]

Not forgetting McHugh in Russia

[LawSteelman]

No I don't have statistics but I've provided you with five concrete examples which fully support my point.

Do you have evidence to contradict what I am saying?

[texaco cup]

Every team can give stats about important penalties they have missed that’s just football. But you can gauge players by their body language too many of our players did not fill you with confidence has they stepped up. At the moment we look like a team who believe they can’t win a match, something I believe you will not see in the Accies team on Saturday or now the St.Mirren team next Tuesday. We have to hope we can stay in the top six until the split otherwise we will be dragged right back down the league with no belief in changing things around

[Handsome_Devil]

Coyne, Coyle and Moult all scored penalties at the Old Firm, McKinnon had a really late winner against Celtic at FP, Brannan had a late equaliser v Celtic, confirmed our top-flight place at Killie...even in regular league games I remember Nijholt, Brannan, Hateley, Teale, Coyne scoring in the dying minutes or added time, Forbes got us a win at Tannadice, Foran at Tynecastle and in a cup semi-final. McFadden beat Celtic and won a cup tie at Killie. We even scored a last minute penalty winner at Ibrox in the 80s. And that's just off the top of my head, there will no doubt be more which are totally forgotten as there is an obvious bias to remember penalty misses rather than conversions.