Arsenal: 4 penalty taker options after Aubameyang miss – ranked

When Alexandre Lacazette was cynically fouled by Danny Rose in the first half against Watford an interesting conundrum arose: who should take the resulting penalty for Arsenal?

It’s quite simple, really, that Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang is the first choice spot-kick taker at the club: he is the captain, the top goalscorer in the squad and dangerous in the 18-yard box whether the ball is dead still or alive.

Well, he missed. Again. Ben Foster’s save meant that Aubameyang had missed his last two penalties, a feat he had fortunately avoided prior in his career. What made this one tougher to swallow was the lack of a rebound to mop up his mistake. No Emi Martinez-esque tears from the goalkeeper.

But he was on the pitch with Lacazette at the time, someone who is rather formidable from the ol’ penalty spot.

Ranking the 4 penalty taker options at Arsenal after Aubameyang missed his fifth spot-kick for the club in 1-0 Premier League win over Watford

The two have started playing together more recently under Mikel Arteta as the manager has shuffled his pack around to include both players centrally. And while it may not have been a debate previously, the question has since become more prominent in Arsenal circles.

Who should be the first choice penalty taker for the club? According to Arteta, there is no reason to change:

"“He [Auba] will stay on penalties if he’s happy to do so,” the boss said. “You will miss when you take penalties – that’s part of your career and the job – [but] we’ll try to help him. “"

Is it really that cut and dry, though? Should Aubameyang be ahead of the pack when other notably effective options are on the pitch? In glorious ranking format, here are the four options to take penalties.

4. Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang

Is Aubameyang even in the top three penalty takers at the club? Possibly.

Based on what he has done throughout his time at Arsenal, however, it might be best that he is taken off spot-kicks with a few other options at the club somewhat more secure.

Across his entire career the striker has netted 30 penalties and missed 10, excluding penalty shootouts. That leaves him with a 75% success rate.

In terms of Arsenal alone, he’s netted ten goals from the spot and missed four for an overall success rate of 71.43%. That isn’t great. Only Ian Wright has missed more for the club.

Notable misses include away in the final seconds of the North London Derby and at home to Manchester City. There is some ambiguity on his miss against Norwich, however, as he missed the initial penalty only for it to be retaken as it was ruled Tim Krul had stood off his line. He made no mistake the second time, so it could be unfair to claim that he’s missed a total of five.

If we’re looking at it from a pressure point of view, then scoring twice against Manchester United, in the FA Cup final, at home to Spurs and in the penalty shootout win over Liverpool in the Community Shield, he has the ‘cojones’ to take one. Of that there is no doubting. He has a technique (starting centrally then side stepping out to the left) and he never wanes from that.

But it’s hard to overlook the numbers, which at Arsenal means he averages two missed penalties every seven taken.

The debate over whether it’s important that the captain takes them as he is the man who needs to be scoring the majority of the goals for Arsenal is moot. You want someone reliable, and there are more reliable candidates than him. His record isn’t dreadful, nor is it great.

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