PENALTY TAKING has been in the spotlight this week. When Ross Barkley seized the ball ahead of his team-mates in Chelsea’s midweek Champions League defeat to Valencia, only to crash a late spot-kick against the crossbar, he was accused of putting himself above the team, even though Frank Lampard subsequently revealed he was the Blues’ designated penalty taker.

There has been similar controversy at Manchester United this season, with Marcus Rashford and Paul Pogba both missing from the spot amid a fevered debate over who should step up for Ole Gunnar Solksjaer’s side.

Aiden McGeady has been Sunderland’s designated penalty taker throughout Jack Ross’ reign, and he retains the role despite the tame effort that proved so costly in Tuesday’s 1-1 draw with Rotherham United.

If the Black Cats get a penalty at Bolton Wanderers this afternoon, Ross will expect McGeady to step up to take it, assuming he is on the field at the time. However, unlike some other managers, the Sunderland boss does not like setting hard-and-fast rules. In certain scenarios, he is more than happy for his players to make their own decision in the wake of a penalty being awarded.

“Aiden’s been our first-choice penalty-taker, and when he’s not played, Lynden’s (Gooch) taken them and done a good job,” said Ross. “But Aiden’s record is pretty good – he’s certainly not missed many.

“There are different schools of thought about what you should do with penalties, but my view has always been to let the players take control. My reason for not being absolutely strict on it is, ‘How do you know the circumstances in which the player will take a penalty?’ He might have had a really bad game or missed an open goal from a yard out or suffered a dead leg in the act of winning the penalty. You can’t predict that.

“We live in a football world where a lot of the decision-making aspect has been removed from players, and I’m not always sure that’s positive. I grew up in a time, particularly at the start of my career, where you were left to figure things out for yourself.

“The analysis about the opposition, information about what formation they play - it makes me sound really old - but it’s all improved since my career started way back. But the more information you have, sometimes the more excuses there are. Sometimes you’ve got to make decisions yourself.”

As someone who worked in youth coaching prior to stepping up to the senior managerial ranks, Ross knows all about the challenge of balancing a desire to allow young players to learn from their mistakes against an understandable tendency to ply them with as much as information as possible.

The same is true higher up the footballing ladder – by drilling a series of set moves and instructions into your squad, are you restricting their ability to think for themselves?

Only this week, England rugby union boss Eddie Jones was talking about the challenge of ensuring his players are able to react instinctively to a fast-moving playing environment, and amid the cut-and-thrust and chaos of your average League One game, Ross admits it can be difficult for his players to come up with solutions to the problems they encounter.

Coaches and managers can help with that, establishing good habits that are strong enough to withstand external pressures, but ultimately, it is down to the player to ensure they are creative and flexible enough to deal with whatever is thrown at them on a matchday.

“I don’t think there’s an inability for players to do that because inherently it’ll still be there,” said Ross. “That’s the reason why they’ve got to be successful in their sport. But there is a huge amount of information now for players, and the depth of that information has come on so quickly, so you do take away a little bit of responsibility on somebody to figure out things for themselves.

“The challenge is how do you do it? How do you practice it? How do you create an environment to do that?

“I spent a bit of time with Gregor Townsend (Scotland rugby union head coach) a couple of years ago and rugby try to create and recreate scenarios they would face on the pitch. With the best will in the world, can you say it’s exactly the same? It’s difficult.

“Probably rugby is one of the better sports at putting the onus on their players to lead aspects of what they do. They might say (to a player): ‘Take half an hour of training,’ or ‘Take a meeting.’ I think if you speak to a lot of managers and coaches there’s a lot of chat about doing that, but does it make that much of a difference? I don’t know. But it certainly is a factor in the modern game.”

* Sunderland youngster Jordan Hunter has extended his loan at Northern Premier Division side South Shields.

Hunter, who was a trainee with Liverpool before joining Sunderland, moved to Mariners Park last month, and having impressed in his early appearances, the 19-year-old full-back has extended his current loan by another 28 days.