Penalty pain

Athletic’s striker writes every wek for Chron Sport
AFTER missing from the penalty spot against Notts County I just wanted the ground to open and swallow me up.

I was distraught - especially because I take them regularly in training and rarely miss.

Usually it is Dean Bouzanis I am up against in goal and he said afterwards he couldn’t believe I missed.

I set high standards and didn’t match up to them. But then even the best penalty-takers, like Matt Le Tissier, have failed at times. It happens.

The players have been great about it. Jean-Yves Mvoto told me that I have to take the next one to get it out of my system.

If I am on the field against Brentford and we get a penalty, I feel confident I will want to take it — and confident I’ll find the back of the net.

We were very close to getting a late winner against Scunthorpe on Tuesday.

After coming on as a substitute, I jumped for a ball thinking it was probably going to be the goalkeeper’s, but it bounced against my head. After that I think he went down quite easily, after realising what had happened. I can see why the referee gave the decision he did - It may well have looked like a foul.

These things happen in football — but I wish they didn’t, as I really need a goal. Matt Derbyshire may have got a final touch, but if it had counted there’s no way I wouldn't have claimed it!

Even after that, there was the chance with the one that passed through Lee Croft’s legs.

He wasn’t expecting the cross - just like I wasn't expecting him to phone me at about 1.30am the next morning to apologise for it!

He was devastated, just as we all were. But we remain confident and everyone is looking forward to Brentford now.


Only a small number of our daily stories appear, heavily edited, on this site. For the full story read our print or eChron editions.
Follow us on Twitter - @OldhamChronicle