There you go, new name for our favourite pundit - daffy Neville .... Like you I'd be more worried by Baines reaction than Mirallas. please log in to view this image
It's been done loads of times by a striker trying to get his hatrick and such like, but exclusively when the side is 3 or 4 up at least. I can't remember ever seeing it at 0-0 in a crucial game
Don't get me wrong - I do not like Mirrales. Good player but a real sh*thouse and a snide c*nt. Surprised not many pundits have picked up on his nasty side. But I rather have a player with that level of self belief than some timid lad.
Don't ask me when but its happened in the past but the player usually scores so goes under the radar.
Self belief or self #delusion There was no chance of his free kick going in after the West Ham one, and the penalty was awful Even his West Ham shootout penalty wasn't great and completely savable
I can't remember ever seeing it. Teams have designated penalty takers, unless the player doesn't fancy it for whatever reason and chooses to pass it to a team mate, but at 0-0 it's never an ego trip decision. I'd have still stoned him to death for it, even if he scored btw.
In terms of football it is pretty bad. As they said at the time can you think of anything worse to do on a football pitch, own goals and mistakes happen all the time but to refuse to let your best penalty taker have it because they wanted it instead is awful. If Gerrard steps up to take a pen and Coutinho takes it off of him refusing to listening to others and misses it,meh doesn't play for us again. It's boderline scoring an own goal on purpose in terms of what's worse to do.
He's a tit, but that's about it in my book. Despicable? Maybe one of the worst things to do within the hermetically sealed morality of football, but after the game I saw the news, reminding me of the atrocities carried out by Boko Haram and the perversities of Gary Glitter and I thought - meh. Mirallas may be a daft egotistical prick, but suggesting he's evil is way over the top. Words like despicable ought to be reserved for actions that warrant it, or they lose their power and meaning. Football pundits need to get a sense of proportion.
Is that the same for freekicks and corners...? If so, we've been ****ting on ourselves for years with the latter
Jagielka should've sorted this out. He's the captain, the manager's voice on pitch, so he should have final word on what goes and what doesn't. Incident suggests to me that Martinez doesn't command the respect of his players or has no order in place in that team. It's like what's been said, you know at certain clubs who takes the pens, corners, free kicks etc and you challenge their taking them at pain of death and risk a roasting afterwards. There's obviously no fear of authority for Mirallas at Toffees. Maybe Martinez's nicey nice persona is to blame and why his teams ultimately collapse in on themselves.
Its quite possible that Martinez as never named Baines as the recognised penalty taker, he was the regular taker before JM arrived so they could have just carried on without discussing it.
Which would back up what I was saying about Martinez's weaknesses as a manager and lack of control of the squad. Mourinho, Pellegrini, Van Gaal, Koeman, probably Wenger and Rodgers, I bet have all said in no uncertain terms who is taking pens under their watch and who is the back-up.
