Solskjaer's best penalty takers at Man United revealed

It's been an indifferent start to the season for Manchester United after winning just one of their opening four Premier League matches.

An interesting facet across those four fixtures was that United have received three penalties - the highest in the division so far. Yet, from those three spot kicks, just one was converted. That came in the Reds 4-0 romp of Chelsea on the opening day.

Marcus Rashford stepped up against Frank Lampard's side and fired the ball into the left corner in a dominant fashion. However, a week later it was Paul Pogba who assumed penalty duty away at Wolves with the score tied at 1-1. His powerful strike to the left was well saved and subsequently meant United were forced to settle for just one point instead of three.

His miss in that match opened the door for Rashford to resume penalty duty at Old Trafford vs Crystal Palace a week later. Rashford again opted to place to the ball to his left, but the shot was hit too well and struck the inside of the post before zipping across the goal mouth and out for a goal kick. The miss proved critical with United going onto suffer a shock defeat to the Londoners.

Ole Gunnar Solskjaer now faces a dilemma. Given the inconsistencies of his key players from the penalty spot, he now must consider who is his best option for the remainder of the campaign in order to avoid repeats of both Crystal Palace and Wolves.

But who should be United's chief spot kick taker? The below data has been provided by Wyscout and examines the four United players who have scored five or more penalties in their career. The penalties on their database vary from U19 games, friendlies, senior club matches and international fixtures.

Marcus Rashford

So far in his career, Rashford has taken seven penalties. Within that sample of seven, he can boast a good conversion rate of 86 per cent, with his sole miss coming in that aforementioned match vs Palace from this season.

He favours striking the ball across his body and towards the left side of the goal. In fact, he has gone to the right on just one occasion so far.

His technique is almost identical throughout, with six of his strikes coming with the inside of his foot. He rarely tends to lightly roll his efforts into the goal, but instead hits the ball with a fair amount of power. The English international also hardly ever stutters his run, instead remaining fairly direct and taking an average of between just six to eight steps at high speed.

He is happy to engage with the keeper and partake in any mind games, with four of those penalties seeing him look directly at the keeper prior to commencing his run up. Although the keepers have dived in the correct direction on four of those occasions, each one has seen them unable to save his shot.

He may have missed one already this season, but the 21-year-old can still boast a pretty impressive record overall.

Anthony Martial

The French attacker has taken nine penalties to date. Within those nine, he has a conversion rate of 78 per cent. He has managed to hit the target on all but one of those efforts, with an effort in a friendly vs Real Madrid in 2017 proving the only strike to not result in a goal or a save from the keeper.

As you would expect, he also favours striking the ball with the inside of his foot, however, he is a lot more varied in his shot location, as the below map illustrates.

He differs in terms of dialog and eye contact with the opposition keeper, sometimes happy to look at them and other times preferring to focus on the ball. Five of his penalty kicks saw him stare towards the keeper prior to his run up.

This willingness to engage in the mind games may have contributed to the opposition keepers guessing the wrong direction in six of his nine spot kicks.

He can tend to be overlooked for penalty duty, but his record suggests he should be considered more frequenlty.

Paul Pogba

The midfielder looks to hold the current title of United's chief penalty taker, although his occasional exuberant style married with an unremarkable conversation rate of just 73 per cent makes him susceptible to losing that title.

The Frenchman is unique in varying his run up. Sometimes he can take as little as three steps as he looks to quickly hammer the ball past the keeper, whereas other times he will look to stutter his run, taking plenty of smaller steps before hitting his stride. Notably against Everton last season, he took a staggering 28 steps before hitting a penalty that was initially saved by Jordan Pickford before he followed up on the rebound and managed to spare his blushes.

As we can see below, he is another that tends to mix up his penalty placement.

Notably, perhaps due to his occasional stuttered run, keepers often favour trying to react to where he has hit the ball, rather than guessing a direction prior to the ball being kicked, which is usually the case with a penalty. Wyscout opine that nine of the keepers have opted to react to the shot rather than trying to guess it's location and nine have also managed to dive in the correct direction.

Whilst not a bad option from the penalty spot, Pogba's gamesmanship is providing keepers with better opportunities to save his shots and the same could prove costly in his aspirations to remain United's No.1 penalty taker.

Andreas Pereira

A surprise candidate for penalty duty could be Pereira.

So far, he has taken five spot kicks and can boast a 100 per cent record across the same. He tends to place his efforts into the bottom corners making it tough for the keepers to get down and make a save.

His run up normally consists of smaller steps - an average of eight - as he builds up momentum edging closer to the ball. He tends to always go for placement of the ball using the inside of his foot, however he has successfully attempted a panenka on one previous occasion.

He fluctuates between focusing his gaze on the ball and on the goal, not concerning himself with any mind games. Interestingly, no keeper has yet to dive in the right direction for any one of his five penalties, highlighting that he tends to give very little away in his run ups.

As his stature continues to grow within the United side, so may his chances of taking more penalties.

The verdict

Overall, there is a strong case to say that Pereira should take a role as one of United's key penalty takers. The youngster can so far boast a 100 per cent record which is very impressive, even with the caveat in that he has taken fewer penalties across less important fixtures.

However for a blend of both accuracy and experience in bigger fixtures, Solskjaer may opt for Rashford on a full time basis. Like Pereira, the England man is yet to see one of his penalties saved, with his one miss rather unfortunately hitting the inside of the upright and clearing away from the goalmouth.

He would however be required to differ his shot location in order to avoid more keepers correctly guessing the direction of his attempts.

Behind those two, there seems to be more of an argument to deploy Martial ahead of Pogba on the list. He is an attacker by trade and boasts a marginally better conversion rate. He also provides a less erratic approach to spot kicks when compared to Pogba's diverse and often exaggerated run ups.