Narrow minded blinkered thinking from a Soccerballist, again.

This time Robbie Savage.

I've just been listening to Alan Davies 'Armchair Euro's'.

Plenty of the usual hand wringing re the England performance.
They then mention to Savage, that Southgate has said our penalty takers should spend some time with a Sports Psychologist, prior to an event/match.

Savage couldn't wait to belittle the idea:-
''it's nonsense, if I missed a penalty would I have to go to Eileen Drury...''
''...To be honest all you need to do to take a penalty is grow a pair, pick a spot and hit it as well as you can, it's not about seeing a psychologist...''.

Personally I think it would be a great idea.
But even if it's cack, at least it would been worth a go.

What harm could it do?

The psychologist might uncover the feelings of inadequacy that are buried deep within the arrogance of England footballers. Then we could deal with the issues that are really causing the problems within the England team.

I think we should send the FA to psychologists to see if we can stop them from being such spineless fuckwits.

Stat Brother said:

''...To be honest all you need to do to take a penalty is grow a pair, pick a spot and hit it as well as you can, it's not about seeing a psychologist...''.

Click to expand...

I do tend to agree with that statement to a certain extent. Older viewers may remember Ray Stewart (West Ham). Now he knew how to score from the spot - he did so 76 times in his career.

55 seconds in....

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Team Cycling recognise the coaches they want and signs them.

Tim Kerrison, an Australian Swimming Coach:-

Team Sky | Pro Cycling | Latest News 2012 | Kerrison targets results

He and The FA would get lynched for any kind of thinking that doesn't result in a quarter final, penalty shoot out, exit.

i reckon if you cant hit a ball into a yard square out of the keepers reach from 12 yards when you're paid 100 grand a week and play football every day then dont fcking take one.

pasty said:

I do tend to agree with that statement to a certain extent. Older viewers may remember Ray Stewart (West Ham). Now he knew how to score from the spot - he did so 76 times in his career.

55 seconds in....

[YT]146kbrPGYwo[/YT]

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Well yeah it's not rocket science.
But if that's all it were we'd win as many shoot outs as we lose.
Or lose as many if we were German.

But to hear Savage.
'Oh we need to do this that and the other re coaching'.

The merest mention of something he doesn't understand and he dismisses it out of hand by mentioning a 'comedy' Faith Healer.

What possible harm could it do?

cookie63 said:

i reckon if you cant hit a ball into a yard square out of the keepers reach from 12 yards when you're paid 100 grand a week and play football every day then dont fcking take one.

Click to expand...

Hmmmm
So either they know they are going to miss before they take it...doubtful.
Or
They should build a time machine and see if they miss, as to whether they take one...unlikely.

I doubt they step up with the intention to miss.
Perhaps some 'mental coaching' would assist whatever it is that causes them to miss.

its great that Savage has such clarity of thought on the matter. maybe he could coach the players.

if it were that simple players wouldnt miss so many. even when they hit its not easy, compare the sublime confidence of Pirlo's pen against us verse the nearly f***ed it of Fabregas against the Portugese.

Stat Brother said:

Hmmmm
So either they know they are going to miss before they take it...doubtful.
Or
They should build a time machine and see if they miss, as to whether they take one...unlikely.

I doubt they step up with the intention to miss.
Perhaps some 'mental coaching' would assist whatever it is that causes them to miss.

Click to expand...

i'll rephrase that... if youre paid 100 grand a week then you should be able to hit a spot.

Even winning one from eight isn't conclusive proof that England are that much worse at penalties than anyone else, it's far from an impossible outcome just by chance given the relatively small sample.

Practising penalties can never be a bad thing, but it might be more productive to coach the goalkeepers instead. It's not an original observation, but nearly 1 in 3 penalties go straight down the middle, yet goalkeepers dive to one side or the other more than 90 per cent of the time. Simply by standing up for one penalty in three, they can expect to increase the number they stop significantly. Unfortunately, they're unlikely to want to be seen looking like a wally who can't be bothered to dive on the (roughly 2 in 3) occasions that it doesn't work.

Bit of both really. I'm sure a psychologist would be a good thing (maybe not in every case, but if it helps one of your players it's got to be worth it).

As Robbie says - not Eileen Drury the bloody faith healer though. I think the case only extends as far as getting someone in who actually is a psychologist...

Robbie Savage missed a penalty for us.

The BBC Horizon programme 'The England Patient' (2001) offered an answer about why penalties are often missed:

NARRATOR: According to Eriksson and Railo fear of failure is more than just a mental problem. It directly affects physical performance on the pitch. It causes a phenomenon sports psychologists call choking. One of the most infamous examples of choking was the Euro '96 semi-final. The match against Germany came down to penalties. As the last England penalty taker, Gareth Southgate faced extreme pressure. if he missed England would lose. Gareth Southgate choked. He hadn't even kicked the ball cleanly and it was all because of what happened inside his brain. At the University of Lancashire Dr Rod Corban is investigating precisely why Gareth Southgate choked by looking at how mental pressure can inhibit a player's physical skills.

DR ROD CORBAN (University of Lancashire): It is the case when people are anxious their movements do become very stiff and jerky, that somehow something about the control of the movement changes and that's one of the reasons I, I decided to pursue this line of investigation.

NARRATOR: In Corban's experiment reflective markers are placed over the subject's body. These relay the relative position of his limbs to a computer for processing.

MAN: On my mark. Three, two, one. Go!

NARRATOR: The data is used to calculate the smoothness of his movements.

ROD CORBAN: What we've been doing in the laboratory is train people up on a variety of tasks and in particular we've looked at a football. We asked him to kick the ball under normal conditions and clicked the information on their kinematics or their movements. We've then placed them under some sort of stress and observed the changes in their kinematics and compared them to their kinematics or their movements under these normal conditions.

NARRATOR: For the anxiety phase of the experiment the player was simply told his performance would be rated by an expert panel. Corban wanted to find out if the player's movements would become less expert under pressure and sure enough, he couldn't even hit the goal.

ROD CORBAN: What we've found, thus far, is that what seems to happen is that under anxiety conditions, their behaviour or their kinematics or their movements become less variable and that is their movements are, are not as fluid, it's more stiff or rigid and also that their movements resemble those observed when they were learning the task.

NARRATOR: Anxiety makes a footballer's movements less flowing and it's all down to how their brain works.

ROD CORBAN: When we learn a task a particular part of the brain seems to be more involved in the control of the action and as we become more expert at the task a different part of the brain becomes more active in the control of that movement.

NARRATOR: When learning a new skill a player has to think hard about what they're doing and their movements are controlled by a conscious thinking area of the brain called the ventral stream, but once the player is expert at the task their movements become second nature and are now controlled by a different, and subconscious, area of the brain called the dorsal stream. Dr Corban believes anxiety reactivates the conscious part of the brain to turn what should be a subconscious, expert movement into one which is clumsy and amateurish.

ROD CORBAN: And that is why we think choking occurs, that is if this ventral stream all of a sudden becomes more dominant and you tend to think too much about what you're doing, rather than just letting the motor system control the movements automatically as it would usually.

NARRATOR: And that's why even professionals can get it so wrong.

ROD CORBAN: If you look at that clip you'll notice he looks as, as if he was, was very anxious and quite rightly so, but then if you look at his actual kick the kick just looks awkward, it looks forced and, and there we might have a classic example of how this increased level of anxiety has had a negative consequence on the control of his action resulting in a poor performance.

Stat Brother said:

''...To be honest all you need to do to take a penalty is grow a pair, pick a spot and hit it as well as you can, it's not about seeing a psychologist...''.

Click to expand...

Worked well for Ashley young.

Stat Brother said:

This time Robbie Savage.

I've just been listening to Alan Davies 'Armchair Euro's'.

Plenty of the usual hand wringing re the England performance.
They then mention to Savage, that Southgate has said our penalty takers should spend some time with a Sports Psychologist, prior to an event/match.

Savage couldn't wait to belittle the idea:-
''it's nonsense, if I missed a penalty would I have to go to Eileen Drury...''
''...To be honest all you need to do to take a penalty is grow a pair, pick a spot and hit it as well as you can, it's not about seeing a psychologist...''

Click to expand...

Typical neanderthal, old-school thinking - encapuslates exactly the kind of reluctance to embrace new ideas that has prevented England from winning anything since 1966.

Eileen Drury was a spiritualist faith heeler, not a professional psychologist and Savage has just proved himself to be a moron by not recognising the difference.

Stat Brother said:

Team Cycling recognise the coaches they want and signs them.

Tim Kerrison, an Australian Swimming Coach:-

Team Sky | Pro Cycling | Latest News 2012 | Kerrison targets results

He and The FA would get lynched for any kind of thinking that doesn't result in a quarter final, penalty shoot out, exit.

Click to expand...

So what you are saying is Dave Brailsford for next England manager.

Don Quixote said:

Robbie Savage missed a penalty for us.

Click to expand...

The only penalty he missed. 18 out of 19 taken. Not bad. Typical, but not bad.

Pay me 100k per week and I would
Never miss a penalty.

Ever.

Would have to practice a bit mind you.

Pantani said:

So what you are saying is Dave Brailsford for next England manager.

Click to expand...

We would probably be the only 2 people who'd realise what a brilliant appointment that would be!

In fairness he's hardly qualified.

All he's done is taken an annual national disaster team.
With the occasional person that has world class.
In 15 years he's taken an entire generation of athletes and turned them into the very best in the world.

Anyone would think he was Spanish or German.

I'm glad somebody brought up that he missed a pen for us. But then, he couldn't care less anyway.