Soccer: Lampard happy to take England penalties despite FA Cup blunder

Frank Lampard has appealed to England manager Fabio Capello to continue to let him take the penalties for the national team, despite missing the target from 12 yards in the FA Cup final on Sunday (NZT).

The Chelsea midfielder has been England's regular penalty-taker since taking over from David Beckham in 2005, and his record is pretty good. Since then he has scored five penalties and missed one, against Hungary in 2006. He has also taken part in two penalty shoot-outs - he scored against Portugal at Euro 2004 in Lisbon as England lost 6-5 on penalties, but missed against the same opposition at the 2006 World Cup, when England lost at the quarter-final stage 3-1 on penalties after a goalless draw.

Lampard went up against his England teammate David James in the Portsmouth goal late on in Chelsea's 1-0 victory, but pulled his shot well wide of James' right-hand post, hitting the keeper's water bottle. The midfielder said: "It was a disappointing penalty to say the least. I actually changed my mind in the run-up which is a bit of a sin. Once you do that, you are probably going to miss and I did. I've taken quite a few penalties against Jamo [David James] in my time and scored a lot in games and in training and sometimes he saves them."

Normally Lampard is one of the most reliable penalty-takers in the Premier League. He scored ten times from the spot this past season, although he suffered a costly miss in December when Manchester City keeper Shay Given pulled off a save in City's 2-1 victory.

Lampard claimed the Wembley miss might actually work in England's favour, as it will ensure that he guards against complacency in the coming weeks. "That kind of thing makes me address it and look at it. When I go away with England I will work on that kind of stuff. Sometimes you need a little reminder of what you have got to do," he said.

Asked if he expects to take the kicks for England this summer, Lampard replied that at least there will be no Didier Drogba trying to take the ball from him, as happened in Chelsea's final league game against Wigan when the Ivorian was desperate to win the Golden Boot. The Chelsea striker went on to score a hat-trick in that game but not before he had spent much of the first half clearly displeased that he had not been given the opportunity to take the penalty.

Lampard said: "I still hope so. Drogba don't play for England so he can't argue with [me taking the penalties]. No, it would not put me off. I've missed penalties for England, I've missed penalties for Chelsea and it comes with the territory.

"It wouldn't put me off. I'm big enough to stand up. I missed and it will play on my mind a little but it will be completely overshadowed by the fact that we won the game and won the Double.

"Thank God it happened in a game that we went on to win. Hopefully it is out of my system now."

England have a dismal record in penalty shoot-outs in international tournaments. They have been knocked out of five major tournaments on penalties, losing to Portugal in 2004 and 2006, to Germany in 1990 and 1996, and to Argentina at the 1998 World Cup. They have won just one, against Spain in the quarter-finals of Euro `96.

- INDEPENDENT