Pep Guardiola has hinted that goalkeeper Ederson could become Manchester City's new penalty taker, before their latest miss against Tottenham Hotspur.
With the score at 0-0, Ilkay Gundogan became the latest man to miss from 12 yards after Serge Aurier brought down Sergio Aguero in the area.
Mike Dean had initially turned down the penalty appeal but after a lengthy wait, VAR overturned the decision, with replays showing there was clear contact on the Manchester City forward. Hugo Lloris bailed out the Spurs defender, however, diving to his left to deny the German.
Aguero himself has been guilty of missing from the spot this season, as has fellow regular taker Gabriel Jesus, although he was on the bench at the time of this particular spot-kick.
Prior to the match against Spurs, Guardiola had hinted that Ederson could be the next man in line to step up on penalty duty.
He said: "Ederson is the best. Believe me, Eddie is the best taker we have on the penalties."He has no blood in his brains, he's so calm, so he could do it."
After this latest miss, we could well see the Brazilian follow in the footsteps of Rogerio Ceni, who famously scored 100 goals for Sao Paulo after mastering his technique from the penalty spot and from free-kicks.
Gundogan's failure from the spot proved costly as Tottenham ended up 2-0 winners, thanks to goals from Steven Bergwijn and Son Heung-min.
Speaking after the game, Guardiola insisted he was not unhappy with his players.
“I’m not angry, not at all. I would be angry if we didn’t run or fight," he said.
"I was talking with my staff, my wife, it would be a mistake after this performance to say how bad we played.
“You are close to winning games when you create more chances and concede fewer but sometimes it’s not enough and it’s happened too much this season. We lost the game and that’s all I can say.
“Maybe one day we will click and we will change it. The team is good, I like the way my team plays, but it’s not enough, the distance is so big and next season we will have to do better.”
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