Chelsea boss Mauricio Pochettino is ignoring the one obvious thing that he could do to avoid one future issue at the club.
There are a lot of issues at Chelsea right now, but there is at least one simple thing that Pochettino can be and should be doing that would immediately cancel out one of them.
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We have seen arguments over who will take the penalty at Chelsea lately, and we saw recently Raheem Sterling take a penalty from the usual taker Cole Palmer, who has been flawless from the spot, and miss said penalty.
This can be sorted out by the head coach of the team, the leader and decision maker of the team, Pochettino. All he needs to do is select 3 to 5 penalty takers at the start of the season and order them from 1 to 3/5. It’s simple. Select a designated penalty taker for the season, and then select his backups. That is problem solved, no confusion on the pitch, and everyone is clear. I don’t understand why on earth he doesn’t do this or even contemplate it? It seems completely daft to ignore it, but that is what he continues to do…
Speaking about Cole Palmer taking penalties, as cited by The Evening Standard, Pochettino says: “If he decides to give the ball to another player, I cannot go onto the pitch to say no or I’ll get a red card.
“He is a specialist, shooting really well, but it is a decision on the pitch depending on the circumstances.
“It is about who is on the pitch. I could say 1, 2, 3, like in Paris [Saint-Germain] with Neymar, [Lionel] Messi and Sergio Ramos.
“But after between them they can say, no you, me, or them. ”
My goodness, Simon. Have you ever played the game yourself? What Poch describes is the way virtually every team handles it. He’s clearly said Palmer is the #1 penalty taker, but that he leaves it to him to decide in the moment whether he feels he’s up to the task or whether he wants to delegate it to the next man down the pecking order. This an extraordinarily common approach and it makes no sense for you to be nit-picking. Are you that hard up for “news” that you have to make a mountain out of mole hill, or are you just looking for an excuse to gripe about the manager?