Christian Benteke balloons penalty high and wide against Hammers (Video)

With Crystal Palace trailing by a goal against West Ham, Christian Benteke missed from the penalty spot.

If only Christian Benteke could take penalties with his head.

It would have helped matters significantly as the Crystal Palace forward ballooned a 45th minute penalty high and wide, ensuring the Hammers go into halftime with a 1-0 lead.

Benteke never looked confident advancing towards the ball and appeared to change his mind mid-stride.

Benteke, who cost Palace £27 million on the transfer market, is known for his strength and aerial prowess. Alan Pardew will most likely think twice before asking Benteke to take another penalty. It was that bad, as you can plainly see.

Not even a minute after missing the penalty, Benteke came within a whisker of leveling the match but scraped the side of the post on an imperious header. Now, that’s what is more expected of the powerful striker.

To be fair to the Belgium striker, he did score the fastest ever goal in World Cup Qualifying history against Gibraltar last week. It took the 25-year-old 8.1 seconds to score against the lowly minnows.

Benteke ended that match with a hat trick. Unfortunately his three-goal performance came against the 205th-ranked nation in the world.

Crystal Palace is currently eighth in the Premier League table, seven points ahead of West Ham, who are second from bottom. West Ham need all three points to assuage anxiety in East London and they’ll take all the help they can get.

It has been raining heavily in West London and the pitch is, as you’d expect, more slick than a BP oil spill. We expect a scrappy second half with lots of heart-in-the-mouth moments.

Crystal Palace will hope that Benteke can make up for his dreadful first half penalty miss, which would go a long way to sparing his obvious blushes.