How Emi Martinez won Aston Villa the shoutout. A quick breakdown:

1.) Martinez is first to the ball and takes control of the situation. Bentaleb is evidently frustrated by this and tried to stop it from happening unsuccessfully. This was the Lille keeper’s fault for not giving him the ball.

2.) Because of Martinez’s antics, the referee disrupts the usual penalty routine by speaking to the keeper. Martinez doesn’t even get a caution for it. Bentaleb is left waiting for an extended period to take the kick.

3.) By this point Bentaleb, usually a very good penalty taker, is rattled and barely takes a second to respond to the whistle. This shows clear avoidance behaviour, indicating that he didn’t want to be in that situation. The penalty itself was fine but his body language is much more obvious than usual as his focus was elsewhere.

4.) In case you couldn’t already tell that Bentaleb was rattled, he boots the ball away into the stands after missing. This shows how much Martinez impacted him psychology before he’d even kicked the ball.

(VIDEO BELOW:)

Why patience was the most important factor as to why Arsenal beat Man City at penalties in the Community Shield.

A brief thread: Firstly, I just want to point out that penalties are not an exact science. A player can take a good penalty which is saved, or can take a bad penalty and scuff the ball in. As such, here we are trying to improve the chances of a good penalty being taken, but not always scored.

Premier League 2022/23 stat leaders.

Thread: Goals (penalties):

1. Erling Haaland: 36 (7)
2. Harry Kane: 30 (5)
3. Ivan Toney: 20 (6)
4. Mohamed Salah: 19 (2)
5. Callum Wilson: 18 (3)