EVERTON keeper Jordan Pickford’s “penalty cheat sheet” was spotted on his water bottle during their 2-0 defeat to Liverpool on Monday night.
The England shot-stopper, 28, had the spot-kick records for Mo Salah, Darwin Nunez, James Milner and Cody Gakpo at hand for the clash with Liverpool.
And we now know he would have dived left for any penalty… with the stopper’s research showing all four preferred to shoot that way.
But that’s not it, Pickford’s magic water bottle even tells him where to stand for each taker and what to watch out for in their run-ups.
The Toffees star’s receptacle showed that Nunez, Milner and Gakpo all shoot to their right – Pickford’s left – more than 60 per cent of the time as opposed to down the middle or to the opposite side.
Salah goes that way a bit less, but still picks it more than any other at 46.7 per cent.
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However, there are also finer details for the Toffees No1 to analyse when each of them step up.
When Salah takes, his sheet tells him to “check run up”, while a Nunez spot-kick means he will have to “wait right”.
For Milner, there is another note to “check run up”, while Gakpo’s brief simply states “GK left”.
And this is not the first time Pickford has had penalty notes put on his water bottle.
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In 2021, he had a very similar set of diagrams on his bottle for a game against West Ham.
He was also believed to have things written on his bottle during England’s World Cup shootout victory over Colombia in 2018.
Yet despite his pre-match revision for the Liverpool game, the England keeper did make a first-half howler.
At the end of a blistering Liverpool counter-attack, Pickford attempted to come out and meet Nunez’s cross.
But instead he left Salah with an open goal as the Egyptian gratefully accepted the invitation to break the deadlock.
And Gakpo added his first Liverpool goal four minutes into the second half to seal the Reds’ first league win of 2023.
Source: Soccer - thesun.co.uk
