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Manchester United vs Middlesbrough (FA Cup 4th Round) 1-1 aet (Crooks) 7-8 penalties


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2 minutes ago, Will said:

I'm not sure it says anything about a player to be honest. If anything I'd view it as a positive character trait, he put the team before himself, could've easily said he would take one to try and force it and prove a point.

Well said Will. 

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Just now, sanddancer said:

Given recent success since Chris arrived the forum really is quick with executions lately what’s going on? 
I don’t think I have read so many postings from people writing players off and reaching for a rope, pitch fork and lantern. 
Did we just win another game or have I been dreaming? 

Don't think anyone's writing him off as a bad player, just that in this section of the season we needed players in who can hit the ground running, we can't be rebuilding a player's confidence and hoping they come good.

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9 minutes ago, Will said:

I'm not sure it says anything about a player to be honest. If anything I'd view it as a positive character trait, he put the team before himself, could've easily said he would take one to try and force it and prove a point.

Thats basically the point I was making - he didn't feel up to it, so he stepped aside and let someone else have a go. Which probably was to the team's benefit.

But like I also said, its strange that of all the players you'd expect to step up for penalties, he's the only one who didn't.

I mean penalties aren't something you need to be comfortable in a team to do. You just stick the ball on the spot and try to whack it into the net. To me it speaks of a players with issues.

 

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3 minutes ago, Foogle said:

Don't think anyone's writing him off as a bad player, just that in this section of the season we needed players in who can hit the ground running, we can't be rebuilding a player's confidence and hoping they come good.

I trust Chris knows what he is doing and I believe our league position and statistics support his decisions. 

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2 minutes ago, AnglianRed said:

Thats basically the point I was making - he didn't feel up to it, so he stepped aside and let someone else have a go. Which probably was to the team's benefit.

But like I also said, its strange that of all the players you'd expect to step up for penalties, he's the only one who didn't.

I mean penalties aren't something you need to be comfortable in a team to do. You just stick the ball on the spot and try to whack it into the net. To me it speaks of a players with issues.

 

Not getting too fussed about it because he was duty bound to take the next one followed by Mr Steele and Joanna Lumley but did not need to

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2 minutes ago, AnglianRed said:

Thats basically the point I was making - he didn't feel up to it, so he stepped aside and let someone else have a go. Which probably was to the team's benefit.

But like I also said, its strange that of all the players you'd expect to step up for penalties, he's the only one who didn't.

I mean penalties aren't something you need to be comfortable in a team to do. You just stick the ball on the spot and try to whack it into the net. To me it speaks of a players with issues.

 

I really think we're reading far too much into a guy not putting his hand up to take a penalty. I'm not even a huge fan of Connolly, I have friends who are Brighton fans and was the first on the forum to point out that he has pretty well documented off the field problems/distractions from what I'd heard from my mates, but we're now saying he has issues because he didn't take a penalty in a shoot out we won. Just seems a bit mad to me.

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1 hour ago, wilsoncgp said:

Quite a few people, it's hardly a rarity in our fanbase to write a player off (we were just talking about Spence yesterday and this place was absolutely rife with rubbish about him this summer) but I think Connolly's prior reputation has got to have something to do with jumping the gun here.

Seen some people on here saying crap about him, some on Twitter (a former member of this site said it's a hill he'll die on, can't understand the motivation to say that) and a pretty audible section of the Riverside too, more than the usual boo boy attitude. Tav for example, this season he's had plenty of critics and audibly so at the ground, across both managers Tav has had stick pretty much every game. Some of the stuff said about Connolly during the Coventry match was beyond even that, which is mad when you think about it. Especially in a game where we spent a lot of it lumping the ball up front. He seemed to do better against Reading.

Ok, i thought you were lumping me in with those people writing him off fair enough. 

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39 minutes ago, AnglianRed said:

Well on one hand it doesn't say much for you as a player.

On the other hand it may have been a shrewd move. As it turned out all our takers did the business.

Imagine if Connolly had done an Elanga and handed the win to United...

 

What does it say about me as a player? I would rather take a bit of responsibility on my shoulders and have some actual control of the situation. Is that a bad thing? 

A better way to put my argument across without upsetting anyone else, is that its more disappointing than anything else. In a perfect world you want you strikers full of confidence and ready to step up when we get a penalty. The fact that a striker doesn't seem confident in that situation is disappointing. That's not a personal dig but you'd rather your players were full of confidence than not. 

For the record I don't even think he's been that bad, its early days and I don't think he's fluffing loads of chances. 

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17 hours ago, Blanco said:

Delighted that we absolutely battered Man U on Friday. We were superior in every way and I can’t believe that some on here think that we were lucky 🍀 

Shame on you all

 

@Downsouth I’m trying to force the debate to beat the Brighton thread 😜

Long way to go Joe we are on page 76 the Brighton thread went up to 86 pages but very impressive nevertheless.

We have a bigger game coming up which will only get half of the number of posts

Phew had to do an edit before @Leesider caught me again

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16 minutes ago, Will said:

I really think we're reading far too much into a guy not putting his hand up to take a penalty. I'm not even a huge fan of Connolly, I have friends who are Brighton fans and was the first on the forum to point out that he has pretty well documented off the field problems/distractions from what I'd heard from my mates, but we're now saying he has issues because he didn't take a penalty in a shoot out we won. Just seems a bit mad to me.

It's a ridiculous discussion. Maybe he did put his hand up, but in training the week up to the game the coaching team had seen better penalties from other players. Maybe Connolly had missed a few in training and Wilder didn't want to put that burden on him. There is nothing to suggest that Connolly was hiding. 

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45 minutes ago, sanddancer said:

I played in a team were our reliable goal scorer would never take a penalty. One of the best weekend players I have ever seen but he stated he never felt confident and there were better takers in the team. Our best penalty taker was central mid field. Not that we ever encountered a shoot out mind. 
I find the debate on penalties takers amusing by virtue no one knows the reason and branding him a coward is frankly insulting the team. 

Sounds like a very unusual player. Most strikers would jump at the chance to add to their goal tallies.

No-one's branded Connolly a coward, as far as I can read. But his behaviour is raising some questions.

Also like the moment he froze on the 6-yard line like a deer in the headlights, instead of at least trying to get on the end of Watmore's cross for an easy tap-in.

 

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28 minutes ago, Will said:

but we're now saying he has issues because he didn't take a penalty in a shoot out we won. Just seems a bit mad to me.

Again this is where some of you are overblowing the criticism, no one on here is relating his lack of confidence on the pitch to personal issues off it. People are turning a professional criticism into a personal one. I don't know why. 

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12 minutes ago, Borodane said:

It's a ridiculous discussion. Maybe he did put his hand up, but in training the week up to the game the coaching team had seen better penalties from other players. Maybe Connolly had missed a few in training and Wilder didn't want to put that burden on him. There is nothing to suggest that Connolly was hiding. 

We're just trying to get the average post count up for DS. 😉

On a more serious note, if the scenario you put forward was indeed the case, then it was a sensible decision by Wilder.

However, to my mind it seems weird for a striker to not fancy penalties. Especially if they're having trouble scoring in open play. Sometimes banging one in from the spot can help get confidence back (how many times have you heard pundits say that during matches?). 🤷‍♂️

But we don't know the reasons why things played out as they did and can only speculate...

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Just now, AnglianRed said:

Thats basically the point I was making - he didn't feel up to it, so he stepped aside and let someone else have a go. Which probably was to the team's benefit.

But like I also said, its strange that of all the players you'd expect to step up for penalties, he's the only one who didn't.

I mean penalties aren't something you need to be comfortable in a team to do. You just stick the ball on the spot and try to whack it into the net. To me it speaks of a players with issues.

Well I don't know either way if he is someone you'd expect to step up and take penalties, for a start. It seems to be the case he's put in that bracket because he's a striker but as plenty on here have said, strikers aren't necessarily good penalty takers. Britt took a third the penalties Leadbitter did for us and had a worse scoring percentage. Grant only missed 4 of 22, Britt missed 2 of 7.

For what it's worth, Transfermarkt has tracked 4 penalties Connolly has taken and none of them are at first-team level so he's never stepped up to take one if there's been chance to. Of those at youth level, he's only scored 1 for Ireland U19s. The one he took for Brighton's U23s in PL2 was against our own U23s which Aynsley Pears saved. And yet interestingly, in all those 3 games he missed a penalty, he scored from open play. It's very possible that Connolly just isn't a good penalty taker, it's not something he's shown to be good at from a young age going by his stats. But he's still scored plenty at youth level.

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