Arsenal: 4 penalty taker options after Aubameyang miss – ranked

1. Alexandre Lacazette

Putting all the cards on the table, if Alexandre Lacazette is on the pitch then nobody else in the team should be ahead of him on penalty duties. Nobody, not even the captain.

Seeing how indomitable he is from the spot for Arsenal, it might then surprise a few supporters to find out he has missed five across his whole career. That’s where the surprise ends, as when balanced out with the 31 he’s scored, results in an 86.1% success rate. A very healthy rate.

But is anybody bothered about his record at Lyon? Fans of the club wax lyrical about Lacazette’s perfect record in north London. Rightly so.

Scoring all eight of his penalties taken for Arsenal, most striking of all is that each one has been near perfect. The goalkeepers haven’t got close. Funnily enough, Ben Foster when he played for West Brom was the closest who has come to saving one of Laca’s penalties (which was his first one for Arsenal) and even then all he did was guess the right way.

There is a wonderful elegance to how Lacazette takes his penalties. It’s almost ballerina-esque in the way the tip-toes up, takes a split second halt in his stride to see where the goalkeeper is positioned and then strokes it into the bottom corner. It’s nothing frilly where he’s going top corner each time, it’s solely on giving himself the best possible chance of scoring.

Watching anyone take a penalty for your football team is nerve-wracking (see: Watford), but there is no doubting the outcome when Lacazette is involved.

Being the close friends they are, maybe Lacazette could take over the reins from Aubameyang just when they’re on the pitch together, perhaps as a parting gift on his final season at the club?

Fans wouldn’t mind that.