Just a guess but I feel you have never donned the goalkeeper’s gloves in a football match.
I have actually and used to save quite a few pens in my time. Obviously it wasn't proffesional standard but I'm sure some penalty takers are just as nervous as amateurs.
Conversely, regular top ten finishes are a better gauge of progress than one off cup wins (Palace and Wigan) where luck plays a bigger role. The fact is we have finished in the top ten three out of the last four seasons while Palace have only achieved that twice in the Premier League era (10th both in 2014/15 and last season when they nudged just ahead of us after our post Euro League slump.
Word of caution
This is why I would not classify us as a top ten side yet, and I doubt the club do either. A few top ten finishes in a row does not make us that, it needs to be sustained over maybe a decade.
Against Newport he saved a few, people are clinging onto that.
Yes, we shouldn’t get carried away but I do think our recruitment model is more intensive, dynamic and wide ranging than Southampton’s was back then. While they predominantly relied on their academy and acquiring talent within for the most part the relatively small pool of Europe (buying Virgin van Dijk was hardly evidence of a sophisticated strategy because even I had noted how good he was at Celtic!) ours has repeatedly tapped markets few else we’re looking at to gain a huge advantage over our rivals.
The odds aren’t in the keepers favour apart from a few super saves it’s normally a crap pen like Hinsh’s effort. I don’t blame pen taker or keeper it’s a lottery in a shoot out.
Southampton’s demise is more complex than their selling of players. Markus Leibherr died and his daughter didn’t really want to own or run a football club. It got sold to a Chinese businessman then Sports Republic. Their demise is much more to do with ownership structures and lack of leadership than selling players.
I think you do Southampton a slight disservice. In amongst the sales in the 2010s and the 3 players you mentioned they also sold Mane for £34m, Luke Shaw for £30m, Morgan Schneiderlin for £30m, Lovren for £21.6m. Then there was Chambers, Clyne, Pelle, Wanyama, Tadic, Jay Rodriguez who all for £10m-£20m.
My argument is in the EPL the outcome is so heavily weighted in favour of the striker it's more luck if a 'keeper saves a pen. Or maybe luck the taker takes a poor shot. I'm more fussed with their usual goalkeeping ability.
Totally agree, penalty saving is an added bonus, and every keeper will let in way more than they save. Just it feels like we don’t even get the odd luck of the draw save.
Yes, that’s a fair point and it underlines mine that their recruitment model was never as good as ours is now because they couldn’t replace the sold player.