Penalty miss won't unsettle Pitman

Here is hoping that Pitman gets the chance to fire the Cherries
to victory today from the penalty spot.

I looked back at last season's DVD of AFCB's promotion to see how many penalties Brett Pitman took. It was absolutely loads although I did see that for most of his shots from 12 yards he does seem to put them to the keeper's left. It was the same side he went for last weekend when he failed to open his Championship goal account from the spot kick.

While goalkeepers at this level are surely fed with loads of videos of penalty takers before a game it is always hard to know if a striker is going to call a keeper's bluff by obstinately refusing to change shooting towards his favourite side no matter what. Now Huddersfield's goal keeper Smithies will be pondering that decision. I say that because I don't think Pitman will care which side the keeper dives. He has missed penalties before and has not let him unnerve him.

In fact, I would be pretty confident that Pitman is hoping that he does get the chance to take another penalty. If the keeper dives early he will slot it home and if the keeper tries to use Carson's tactic of standing to one side I expect Pitman will just look away before taking his kick and give a bit of smile, hopefully before scoring.

If Brett was to miss another spot kick though, Ian Harte and Harry Arter are not bad replacements. Striker though back themselves to score and Brett will become even more of a threat to teams once he has scored this season.