Jordan joins the penalty kings

Jordan Ayew’s name has been added to a list which already featured six past and present Swansea City players.

Scott Sinclair was the first, then came Danny Graham, Wilfried Bony, Jonjo Shelvey, Bafetimbi Gomis and Gylfi Sigurdsson.

Who are they? The men who have scored penalties for the Swans in the Premier League era.

As a collective, they have been rather good at the job of taking spot-kicks. Exceptional, in fact.

Since promotion to the top division back in 2011, the Swans have been awarded 21 penalties in league matches.

Of those, all but one has been converted.

That gives the Swans a spot-kick success rate of 95 per cent, which is the best of any club who have taken at least five penalties throughout the Premier League’s history.

Thanks partly to the penalty maestro who was Matt Le Tissier, Southampton are second in the list of most successful clubs when it comes to Premier League spot-kicks.

Stats provided by Opta show the Saints have scored 62 of their 69 penalties at Premier League level (a 90 per cent success rate).

Next in the list are Watford and Nottingham Forest (both 89 per cent success rate), then come Blackpool (88 per cent) and Burnley (87 per cent).

The most successful of the Premier League’s heavyweight clubs are Chelsea (110 of 128 penalties scored or 86 per cent), with Birmingham City on the same mark.

Hull City (83 per cent) and Reading (82 per cent) complete the top 10, suggesting players in teams who are under pressure have a habit of delivering.

Jordan Ayew did just that last weekend when he joined the list of Swansea’s penalty kings.

Some on the outside were wondering who might step up after Cheikhou Kouyate’s foul on Andre Ayew saw the Swans were awarded their first penalty kick since December 2016.

But Jordan Ayew looked like a season penalty-taker as he waited for Adrian to commit himself before stroking the ball into the net.

Sinclair was the first player to score a penalty for the Swans following their promotion from the Championship.

Indeed, his effort against West Brom in September 2011 was the club’s maiden Premier League goal.

Sinclair scored three more top-flight penalties – and became the only Swan to miss one so far, when Manchester City’s Joe Hart denied him in April 2012.

Danny Graham scored once from 12 yards for the Swans, then Wilfried Bony took over penalty-taking duties and scored five out of five.

Jonjo Shelvey twice netted from the spot for the Swans in the Premier League and Bafetimbi Gomis chipped in once, at Chelsea in August 2015.

Then came Gylfi Sigurdsson’s stint as the man the Swans turned to whenever a penalty came their way.

He has scored more than anyone else, with six out of six converted.

Last Saturday, Jordan Ayew carried on where Sigurdsson left off.

Long may the Swans’ sequence continue.