By Opta Analyst | Created at 2025-03-20 11:02:03 | Updated at 2025-03-20 23:25:41
12 hours ago
After a goal with each foot against Ipswich, we take a look at Anthony Elanga‘s impressive numbers in a Nottingham Forest side chasing Champions League qualification.
Arjen Robben was proof that wingers don’t need to be two-footed.
His opponents always knew what was coming. Everyone did, really. The dummy with his right before moving the ball out of his feet and crossing or shooting with his left.
And yet, week in, week out, he consistently beat his man and consistently produced end product. At his best, even though he was so predictable, the former Chelsea, Bayern Munich and Real Madrid winger was impossible to stop.
But Robben is the exception rather than the rule. You have to be extra special to be as effective as he was while being so one-footed. Modern-day examples, like Barcelona’s heavily left-footed Lamine Yamal and Raphinha, are equally rare.
But while extreme one-footedness is uncommon among the game’s elite wingers, genuinely two-footed wide players are even rarer. Ousmane Dembélé is probably the best properly two-footed attacker playing right now, but there are a few others at the top of the game.
The ability to go both ways is an extremely valuable one. Genuinely two-footed wingers give defenders more to think about than others. There’s no sense in trying to show Dembélé onto a particular foot because he has no weak side.
Nottingham Forest’s Anthony Elanga isn’t at the level of the game’s truly elite wingers, but he is like Dembélé in the sense that he too has the ability to go either way. And as a key part of Forest’s charge towards Champions League qualification, he is showing just how valuable a skill that is.
Playing on the right side of a lightning-quick attack, the former Manchester United man is thriving. He has become one of the most threatening wingers in England, scoring five goals and providing eight assists in league games in 2024-25. Only six players have more assists in the Premier League this season than him.
Last weekend against Ipswich, he had his best game in front of goal, scoring his first ever brace in club football. He struck twice as Forest powered into a three-goal lead with a six-minute blitz to put the result beyond doubt before the game had even reached half-time.
Elanga’s goals perfectly illustrated the threat he carries. For his first, he charged down the right wing, stood up Ipswich centre-back Jacob Greaves who, fatally, tried to show him down the line…
…only for Elanga to shift the ball the other way and stroke a perfect left-footed finish into the far corner.
Just four minutes and 23 seconds later, Elanga had his second, this time finishing coolly from a one-on-one with his right after racing onto a long ball upfield.
It was only the 15th instance of a player scoring a goal with each foot in a Premier League game this season, but while most of those braces were scored by centre-forwards, often including at least one close-range finish, both of Elanga’s came following a ball carry and from a decent distance to goal. His was one of only two that included a goal from outside the box.
He scored his two goals from a total distance of 38.8 metres from goal, the second-greatest distance of the 15 two-footed braces scored in the Premier League this season (after Justin Kluivert’s double, scored from 39.7m, against Newcastle). Scoring a tap-in with your weak foot is far easier than scoring from the distances Elanga scored from.
It shouldn’t come as a surprise to see Elanga shooting or scoring with both feet. He has always been comfortable on both sides, with five of his Premier League goals coming with his right foot and five of them coming with his left.
Since 2021-22, the first season that he played regularly for United, Elanga has taken 55.1% of his shots in Premier League games with his right foot, and 36.4% with his left. Comparing him to all other players who have had at least 100 shots in that time, the difference between the proportion of his shots taken with each foot of 16.7% is the fifth smallest.
In other words, according to our (rather rudimentary) calculations, Elanga ranks fifth for having an equal split between right- and left-footed shots over the last four seasons in the Premier League, making him the fifth-most two-footed shooter.
The players above him in this list are Jean-Philippe Mateta (13.8% more right-footed shots than left), Diogo Jota (15.9% more right-footed), Odsonne Édouard (16.4% more right-footed) and Son Heung-min (17.7% more right-footed). The most two-footed player who leans more heavily on their left than their right is Bournemouth’s Antoine Semenyo, with 20.7% more left-footed shots than right.
Son has long been thought of as the gold standard for two-footed Premier League players, scoring 58% of his goals in the competition with his right foot, and 39% with his left. Of players with 75 goals in Premier League history, Son has the smallest difference in the proportion he has scored with one foot compared to the other, making him the most two-footed goalscorer in the Premier League era.
Elanga isn’t entirely like Son in style, but they do have more similarities than their two-footedness – mainly in how quickly they carry the ball forward.
Right now, Elanga is the Premier League’s most effective player at moving the ball up the pitch at pace. He ranks top of all players in the league to play at least 300 minutes this season for the average distance of each of his carries (15.2m), the average distance each of his carries moves the ball vertically up the pitch towards the opposition’s goal (11.9m) and for the proportion of the total distance he carries the ball that is vertically up the pitch (78.6%). That directness is a huge weapon for Forest under Nuno Espírito Santo, who wants his team to attack at pace whenever possible.
The combination of his lightning pace, ability to turn defence into attack by charging up the pitch with the ball, and the fact he is about as comfortable as anyone else in the league at shooting with either foot makes him a thrilling watch.
And as Son comes towards the end of his career having lost a yard of pace, Elanga is also arguably unique in the Premier League as an attacking threat.
Every time he runs at a defender, they are left with a challenge that few other attackers pose: how do you stop a player who could genuinely go either way?
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