Given the excellence of their own spot kicks, West Ham United would surely have won Monday’s penalty shootout against Brentford without Dango Ouattara’s dreadful penalty – but it certainly helped.
Indeed, West Ham United beat Brentford 5-3 on penalties to progress into the FA Cup quarter-finals, where they will play Leeds on the first weekend of April.
All five West Ham players scored from the spot, while Ouattara missed for the Bees.
Who was West Ham’s BEST PLAYER against Brentford?! 🤔
The forward attempted a panenka but got it all wrong, allowing Alphonse Areola to make surely the easiest save he’s ever needed to in a shootout.
The attempt was so bad that it went viral on social media but Brentford boss Keith Andrews refused to blame the player.
Andrews refuses to criticise Ouattara’s penalty
Speaking to reporters after the game, Andrews said: “No, I’m not annoyed at all.
“I think the easiest thing for a footballer to do is not take a penalty. It takes unbelievable courage on a stage like that to take a penalty.
“It’s probably the first time I’ve ever spoken about penalty kicks and people that miss them.
“I despise the culture around players that have missed penalty kicks – I think you know the ones I’m talking about, national heroes that have done it, ridiculed, persecuted. I think it’s disgusting.”
He added: “It takes serious courage to do that.
“He practises that technique a lot, if it goes in everyone’s raving about him.
“Dango will get the absolute support he needs from myself and everybody attached to it.”
It was a classy response from the Bees boss, who has covered himself in glory this season.
Ally gets it 😎 Where should Pablo Felipe play for West Ham – as a No.9 or a No.10?
To his credit, Ouattara played very well in normal time, but was lucky to have avoided scrutiny when he went down under literally no contact from Aaron Wan-Bissaka in the penalty box towards the end of the game.
West Ham, on the other hand, got it absolutely spot on with their attempts.
Perhaps one should expect the likes of Jarrod Bowen, Taty Castellanos, Callum Wilson and to an extent Tomas Soucek to score with relative ease, given their prowess in front of goal in general.
The same cannot be said of Konstantinos Mavropanos, but his stunning penalty was perhaps the very best of the lot.
The history of failed panenkas against West Ham United
This isn’t the first time in the reasonably recent history that such a thing has happened to West Ham.
Back in November 2020, Ademola Lookman missed a panenka against West Ham for Fulham, an attempt that was arguably worse than Ouattara’s attempt.
Danny Welbeck also tried something similar in east London during Brighton’s 2-2 Premier League draw in December but his effort hit the bar.
Quite what it is about West Ham – or indeed the London Stadium – that attracts such decision making is unclear.
All that matters, however, is that West Ham are into the FA Cup quarter-finals and there’s a very real prospect they could be heading to Wembley reasonably soon…
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