Pardew pledges to tackle West Brom penalty tug of war
A perplexed Alan Pardew has vowed to get to the bottom of why Hal Robson-kanu stepped up to take a first-half penalty in West Bromwich Albion’s win over League Two Exeter City.
The Welshman’s miss may not have mattered in the end, but Pardew does not want to see a repeat of what happened at St James Park when his side return to the battle for Premier League survival this week. Second from bottom in the Premier League, West Brom at least ended a run of 21 games without a win as they provided Pardew with his first victory since taking charge, and the long-suffering fans the first thing to cheer about since Aug 22.
“The penalty didn’t affect the game, but it could have,” Pardew said. “There were a couple of little moments there that we will have to make sure never happen again, so there will be words this week in the nicest possible way.
“I am not going to tell you who should have taken the penalty, but Hal is a striker and he should still score. It was a shame because we played so well and we’ve got some negativity over the penalty miss.
“That fine detail is what the Premier League is all about. We cannot afford in the games we’ve got left to make any mistake on the detail.”
Robson-kanu could not have been the designated penalty taker at the start of the game because he only came on in the 10th minute, when Kieran Gibbs limped off with an injury. Salomon Rondon had slammed home the quickest goal of his side’s season after only 70 seconds to boost his confidence and Jay Rodriguez, who had scored the only penalty for West Brom to date this season, also found the net in the 25th minute.
While the penalty debate continued, Robson-kanu emerged from the right wing to take the kick and tamely stroked it into the arms of Christy Pym. He did not exactly wrestle the ball from his teammates a la Christian Benteke, but he left everyone wondering what was going on.