THOMAS FRANK HAS called for action to stop football’s “dark arts” after Ivan Toney’s first penalty miss in four and a half years.
The Brentford manager says opposition players regularly abuse Toney as he prepares to take a spot-kick.
Toney took himself away from the penalty spot prior to his effort against Newcastle, with Mathias Jensen instead holding the ball.
But he still saw his spot-kick saved by Nick Pope to ruin his perfect record of 22 successful penalties out of 22 for Brentford.
“I sometimes wonder if you should do something about that,” said Frank after his side slipped to a 2-1 defeat.
“When there’s a penalty a lot of teams need to have strategies to put a different taker on the ball first so he gets all the abuse, and the right taker doesn’t get the abuse.
“Maybe we should look into that, in general. Because when the decision is made, rightly or wrongly, why not have it as a man-to-man duel, keeper and striker, instead of all that mental bit? That’s just a question I’d like to ask.
“I don’t think that’s why he missed. But every single time someone wants to get into Ivan’s head.
“We’ve experienced it before. I think it the first time was against Norwich, Tim Krul, he’s always very active on the taker. So we took Ivan away.
“But I think it should be the other way round. It shouldn’t be the need to think about a strategy. I think we need to think about sportsmanship in the game.
“I know the game management bit, but I think we need look into the dark arts of football. Where is the sportsmanship?”
“Should referees be more aware of it? Yes, I think so.”
Toney did score with a second penalty to put the Bees ahead, but Newcastle came back to win thanks to David Raya’s own goal and Alexander Isak’s strike.
Frank also revealed that he had made plans to counter Toon boss Eddie Howe’s sidekick Jason Tindall on the touchline.
He added: “We were deliberately more active towards the fourth official because we knew that Newcastle have that strategy.
“Jason Tindall always speaks in the fourth official’s ear throughout the game and we needed to be aware of that.”
Newcastle’s fifth win in a row kept them in third place, and Howe called it “a huge moment in our season”.
Can’t disagree with his point but just hard to take when we’ve a pick of a 21/2 mile radius. How can we ever match the Dublin clubs.
In reality it’s up to the player himself, my own opinion would be to play with my home club if I could. I wouldn’t be a fan of lads who would transfer to a bigger club or a higher level but it’s their choice of they want to do that.
It’s a tough one. Lads have careers & families and may not be able to commit to the travel involved if they are living in Dublin and playing with their hometown club. Playing with the club 5 minutes away is more practical.
In saying that, no reason why these players have to play in the Provincial championships. Let them play league and ch’ship in Dublin, but you use home-grown players beyond that.
How can we ever match Dublin clubs? €€€€€€ is the only way…..
You can disagree, they signed former dub eamonn fennell from o’tooles who are five mins away from Vincent’s. And another of their better players came from o tooles.
Parnells got awful stick for imports, it didn’t work out for them and they are back to the right way now. Plunketts vinnies ballymun shipping lads in!
All the top clubs are the same, Kerry club Dr.Crokes centre back Alan o sullivan is an import and rumor is the Crokes have approached this years kerry minor Clifford to transfer and he probably will if the terms are right!!:-):-):-):-
Does Eamon Fennell still play?
Not sure saw him on crutches though