Sore shoulder helped Carson save penalties
MOTHERWELL pen a l t y shoot- out hero Trevor Carson has revealed he only managed to pull off a hat- trick of spotkick saves in the dramatic Europa League triumph over Coleraine because he suffered a shoulder injury.
Carson denied Ian Parkhill, Lyndon Kane and Gareth McConaghie at The Showgrounds in his native Northern Ireland on Thursday night after a thrilling encounter had finished 2- 2 after extra- time.
The win sets up a glamorous third qualifying round tie against Hapoel Be’er Sheva in Israel – probably in Petach- Tikva near Tel Aviv – next week.
However, the goalkeeper has admitted his heroics between the sticks at the end of the match owed a great deal to his personal misfortune.
“We do watch penalties and go through them Hinchy [ Motherwell goalkeeping coach Craig Hinchcliffe] had them all for me before the penalties,” he said. “But he told me just to go with my gut instinct.
“I dived to the right for the first one and actually hurt my right shoulder a bit. So for the next one I told myself I had to dive to the left regardless. Strategies go out the window when things like that happen. Fortunately, that was the side he chose and I saved it.
“For the last one, I had played with Gareth before and I knew that as a big centre- half he was going to go for power. So I stood up and reacted to the last one. I have faced six penalties in normal time this season and haven’t saved one. To get three was just a dream. It was a buzz.
“To be fair, I had been practising penalties, but I had two scored against me in regulation time. I think somebody was looking down on me for the shoot- out. It is 50- 50 for penalties and luckily I guessed right for each one. I don’t think I’ve had that success before, even at boys’ level.”
Carson added: “Going to Israel is going to be a great experience. We will be the underdogs, but we will go there believing we can get a result. It isn’t beyond us. But first we have a difficult game against Aberdeen
at Pittodrie on Sunday. We have three wins out of four now and have some confidence back in the camp.”
Motherwell have signed Livingston midfielder Robbie Crawford on loan after sending wide player Harry Robinson to Queen of the South on a temporary deal.
Former Ayr player Crawford has signed at Fir Park until January, while Robinson has left on loan for the season.
Meanwhile, Aberdeen’s Scott Wright is enjoying his football so much he has no need to look beyond his next game.
The Dons have a mouth- watering Europa League tie against Sporting Lisbon to come next Thursday after they made it six consecutive wins by beating Viking Stavanger 2- 0 in Norway on Thursday night.
But Wright is determined to keep that winning run going tomorrow and knows they cannot take their eye off the ball.
“It was the glamour tie when the draw was made but we just focused on the game against Viking to make sure we got through that,” the 23- year- old said. “Now we turn our attention to Sunday to make sure we put in a good performance there and hopefully get a good result, and then we can focus on the game next week.
“With the European games, we have been quite good at being able to park it to one side. A lot of people were speaking about Sporting Lisbon before we even played the game on Thursday night but in- house we knew we had a game to play before we got to Sporting and it was important we dealt with that.”