Everton goalkeeper Jordan Pickford attached a ‘penalty cheat sheet’ to his water bottle for last night’s Merseyside derby against Liverpool.
That’s according to the Daily Mail, who claim that the England international had written notes about Mohamed Salah, Cody Gakpo, Darwin Nunez and James Milner.
As per the notes attached to the shot-stopper’s bottle as relayed by the Mail, Nunez, Milner and Gakpo “all target the goalkeeper’s left-hand-side more than 60 per cent of the time.”
However, it also read that Salah tends to “favour the same area, but he is more unpredictable – selecting the middle 13.3 per cent of the time and the right 33.3 per cent of the time.”
Furthermore, also adding instructions to the bottle, Pickford told himself to ‘check Salah’s run up’.
Pickford’s notes about Salah last night
Despite all his preparation, Pickford never had the opportunity to use his bottle against Liverpool last night.
Instead, he was largely at fault for the opening goal of the game, where Salah almost had an empty net ahead of him, due to the goalkeeper’s strange positioning.
However, even if the Egyptian did step up to take a penalty against the Toffees no.1, Reds fans would have backed him to score. From the spot, the 30-year-old is extremely reliable.
Having scored his first goal of 2023 yesterday, Salah will have picked up confidence heading into the first-leg of Liverpool’s last-16 Champions League clash against Real Madrid next week.
Jurgen Klopp will be relying on his star attacker to help lead the side through, also hoping they can maintain their form for Saturday’s Premier League match-up with Newcastle United.
It’s great to see Salah back on the score-sheet!