Celtic manager Brendan Rodgers has detailed Matt O’Riley’s offer to take the Hoops’ penalties after he sublimely scored from 12 yards at Ibrox today.
Connor Goldson was adjudged to have handled the ball inside the box from a corner. The spot-kick was given after a VAR review.
O’Riley stepped up to take his first green and white penalty and dinked the ball down the middle with utmost composure. Jack Butland had no chance.
Post-match, gaffer Rodgers explained the Danish midfielder’s offer to take his team’s spot-kicks and how he knew he was going to go with a panenka.
He said: [The Celtic Way] “He [O’Riley] has wanted to take penalties. He came into my office a few months back and said: ‘Listen if you want to change penalty takers, I am here’.
“He asked the coaches but we knew where it was going and he showed that composure and I knew as he had practised it the other day.
“He had practised that (Panenka) and he said he was going to dink it down the middle.”
This season, Reo Hatate, Luis Palma, and Adam Idah have all taken penalties at some point or another. Each of said trio has missed but so far, O’Riley has an impeccable record.
One imagines the 23-year-old will assume penalty duties for the remainder of the campaign unless things go pear-shaped over the coming seven (or potentially eight) games.
