If you want to be a penalty taker at Arsenal, be sure you are left footed!
Six penalties. More than any other team in the Premier League. Four different penalty takers. Everyone likes to perform with the left foot. Isn't that why Jorginho’s 41/49 career penalty taker is not enough to include him among the players taking responsibility from the penalty spot for Arsenal?
By DIMITRIS MANAKOS
It is a given that many will have wondered. Arsenal have won six penalties this season, more than any other team in the Premier League, and all of them have been converted into goals.
In only two cases, however, the performers are the same. Two times Bukayo Saka has taken charge, two by the team captain, Martin Ødegaard, one by Kai Havertz against Bournemouth in order to regain his lost spirit and one by Fabio Vieira, on the occasion of his wife's pregnancy, in order to dedicate it to her.
However, the Portuguese scored once more this season from the penalty spot against Reading, playing for Arsenal's academy side in the EFL Trophy, and took the second penalty awarded to the Gunners, missing this time.
Mikel Arteta therefore has two constants, Bukayo Saka and Martin Ødegaard. And it is surprising that Jorginho is not included among them. After all, we are talking about a highly skilled performer, excluding the unlucky moments that everyone has, as in Italy's last game against North Macedonia.
In general, the percentage of Jorginho’s accurate executions is high. He has shot 49 times in his career from the whitewash and has scored in 41. In practice, this means that it misses 16% of the time.
Perhaps that's why Arsenal constantly decide to change performers. Because Saka and Ødegaard seem more reliable and because Jorginho is often capable of the best and the worst!
It looks like a mind game of Mikel Arteta. It has two "unthinking" left-footers and one right-footer. You never know who will execute! And he's not right-footed. None of those mentioned earlier, shooting across the goalkeeper with their… right foot! What a stat…