Which are Liverpool’s Best Goals Scored with Weaker Feet?
Trent Alexander-Arnold scored his first ever left footed goal as Liverpool beat Leicester. What are the Reds’ best strikes from players’ weak feet?
Liverpool, eh? Wobbling again. Only able to beat a relegated Leicester City side 1-0. The finish line can’t come soon enough for that lot.
Not a bit of it.
That the game ended 1-0 was utterly absurd. Listing the notable attacking numbers the Reds posted would go a long way towards filling an article.
It’s worth a quick recap, purely to counter the narrative in the opening paragraph. Liverpool had 28 attempts at goal, the joint-21st most in Europe’s top five leagues this season.
These were not pot-shots from long-range either. The average distance of the Reds’ efforts was 12.6 yards from goal. No other team in England, France, Germany, Italy or Spain has had as many shots from no further out on average in the last eight seasons.
Only one of them truly mattered. Trent Alexander-Arnold’s sole shot of the contest sliced through a crowd, slicing Liverpool’s magic number in half as it went.
That it took the Reds to within three points of the Premier League title made it memorable enough. It was also the first left-footed goal of the right-back’s senior career. Alexander-Arnold had taken 60 shots with his weaker foot for Liverpool and England (according to available data) so was due to score with it eventually.
As much as goals carry the conversion confirmation bias which sear them into memory ahead of most misses, some very memorable goals from Reds history have been bagged by so-called weak feet. Data can be sketchy once you look back over 20 years, but there are some excellent examples in the Transfermarkt database.
Robbie Fowler was a lethal finisher, regardless of being primarily left-footed. His 22 recorded right foot strikes include one which was seconds from being the winner in a UEFA Cup final.
Similarly, the right-footed Michael Owen used his left peg to settle the 2001 FA Cup final, before scoring against Manchester United and Bayern Munich in Super Cup games at home and abroad later in the year. This despite only having 15 recorded goals with his weaker foot. Fans will probably also recall his derby opener at Goodison Park two years later; another which Owen struck with his left.
Alexander-Arnold’s goal at the King Power set wheels in motion for a countdown. Which are Liverpool’s best goals scored with weaker feet? This won’t be as data driven as the look at the club’s best goals since 2017 (below), though we will be focussing on the same period as the data is reliable.
I’ve also limited it to one per player to keep things varied, with clips of each (that are limited to the goal when the video is match highlights). Feel free to argue with the selections in the comments section if you’re a paid subscriber.
Fifth Place: Dominik Szoboszlai vs. Manchester City, February 2025
Left-footed goals have done much to make Liverpool Premier League champions elect in 2024/25, thanks predominantly to Mohamed Salah.
Many other players have contributed. The first goal of the campaign was struck by Diogo Jota’s left foot, before Darwin Núñez lashed in a belter against Bournemouth on his weaker side (though which is his strong foot, to be honest?).
Luis Díaz scored a couple, while the Scousers in the team have given the Reds the lead against Leicester both home (Curtis Jones) and away (Alexander-Arnold) with their weaker foot.
However, it’s Dominik Szoboszlai who deserves to make this countdown, thanks to being the second top scorer of left-footed goals by right-footed players in the Premier League this season (behind Jean-Philippe Mateta).
Three of his five broke the deadlock in their respective games. Even so, you can’t look past a goal which settled the win at Manchester City, as it effectively ended the title race. Fewer weak-foot goals will have felt so sweet, nor mattered so much.
Fourth Place: Diogo Jota vs. Arsenal, November 2021
Just as a league goal from this season merits inclusion, so Diogo Jota deserves a mention. Across his Premier League career, the Portuguese forward has scored 31 goals with his right foot, 22 with his left. It’s a pity there’s not an easy way to check all players, as few with decent samples will have closer splits.
His top three candidates all came against the big clubs of north London. It was a real struggle to choose between them.
Jota memorably rescued a win for Liverpool against Tottenham after they had thrown away a 3-0 lead in April 2023. Thirteen months earlier, he gave the Reds the lead at the Emirates Stadium by lashing the ball in at the near post from the left of the Arsenal box.
That wasn’t the first time he’d embarrassed Aaron Ramsdale either. The finish itself for our chosen Jota strike wasn’t his most special but what he did to reach that point was glorious.
One defender slid out of the way, Ramsdale got sat down and a third Gunner came close to taking out another in a forlorn attempt to stop the shot. In a cauldron of chaos, on the pitch and in the stands, Jota was coolness personified.
Bronze Medal: Sadio Mané vs. Bayern Munich, March 2019
Sadio Mané only has four fewer weaker-foot goals on record for Liverpool than Salah despite scoring fewer than half as many in total.
And, boy, did he have some candidates. His debut strike at Arsenal, a stoppage time winner at Everton, goals in Champions League semi-finals against Roma and Villarreal; all valid choices.
Another which sprang to mind was his hit against Manchester City in the washing machine of a 4-3 win in January 2018. But Mané’s entry has to be his goal against Bayern Munich. It simply has to be.
Someone should write a ballad with a verse for each touch. Facing the looming presence of one of the best goalkeepers in the world, Mané brought a long ball under control superbly.
He then turned into space before floating a deft shot into the net from 18 yards out with his supposedly weaker foot while almost falling over. Good luck replicating that in the playground, kids.
Silver Medal: Mohamed Salah vs. Manchester City, October 2021
This goal topped the standings in the Five Best Liverpool Goals list. I make no apologies for including it again, as how could I not?
Salah collected the ball outside the Manchester City penalty area, with three opposition players in very close attendance. He left the trio of Bernardo Silva, João Cancelo and Aymeric Laporte for dead as he carried the ball towards goal. From there, he hit what was deemed to be an almost statistically unstoppable shot (0.97 post-shot xG) from a tight angle with his right foot.
Ninety-nine per cent of players won’t score a goal this good with their stronger foot.
Gold Medal: Divock Origi vs. Tottenham Hotspur, June 2019
It looked like Liverpool were going to squeak home 1-0 in the 2019 Champions League final thanks to an early Salah penalty. If Spurs weren’t exactly battering the door down in the middle of the night, they were knocking hard after you’d gone to bed. Alisson Becker’s eight saves get largely forgotten now.
Divock Origi was the kind of player who didn’t feature often enough for you to necessarily even register what his strongest foot was. But he scored his first left footed Liverpool goal (per available data) in a Champions League final because that’s the kind of player he was for the Reds. Don’t even expect the unexpected, just watch to see what happens.
The Belgian later bagged three more Liverpool goals with his left peg, a trio which included opening the scoring in a 5-2 Merseyside derby win and bagging a 94th minute winner at Wolves. He could’ve scored a hundred, it’s the goal in Madrid that is immortal. A very worthy weak-foot countdown winner.
Here's a link to a table of the weaker foot goals I could find on FBRef if anyone is interested:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1qtEFS81WSpJxNPmgrT1F7-q6Wi4nWH6peAn2iScaxJY/edit?usp=sharing
Fun article! The goal that sprang to mind for me was Alonso's equaliser in Istanbul, but is obviously time barred here.