Jordan Pickford’s penalty antics put off Erling Haaland before his big MISS for Man City, as water bottle cheat sheet for the Everton keeper emerges

Jordan Pickford was up to his old tricks again at Manchester City as he pulled a string of off-putting faces to distract Erling Haaland before the striker missed his penalty on Boxing Day.

The home side, who came into the match having only won one Premier League match in their last eight while conceding a hatful of goals, released some pressure early in the contest after a deflected Bernardo Silva effort found the Everton net.

But City’s now familiar struggles reared their head once more as Pep Guardiola’s men struggled to create chances of note and the Toffees made them pay later in the half as Iliman Ndiaye stabbed home a wonderful effort to level things up.

Everton looked to have blown it, however, when Vitalii Mykolenko conceded a foul in his own area having horribly mistimed a challenge on Savinho just after the hour mark, leaving the referee with no choice but to point to the spot.

After a short build-up, Haaland stepped up to take the penalty, inhaling deeply before commencing his usual short, stuttery run-up.  

Never one to shy away from the big occasion, Pickford followed up his antics by diving low to save the limp spot kick before Bernardo Silva dinked a ball back in, which Haaland nodded home.

The England star even brought back his old water bottle with detailed statistics attached

But the goal was flagged offside, leaving the score at 1-1 and Everton managed to see out the remaining half an hour to secure a vital point at struggling City.

The Everton shotstopper had also done his homework with his signature cheat sheet affixed to a water bottle spotted on camera. 

Ever the stickler for statistics, England’s number one scanned the resource before he faced Haaland from the spot.

The bottle had detailed information listing each player’s strongest foot, as well as the percentage of penalties they aim centrally, to the left, and to the right.

The combination of Pickford’s distraction techniques and the pre-match prep caused Haaland to weakly strike his kick low to the centre-left of the goal and the Everton star to correctly guess the right direction.

The save kept the game’s parity in tact and the away side even had a couple of chances to snatch all three points at the Etihad, wasting late counter-attacking opportunities. 

Pickford has been known for his attention to detail at penalty kicks ever since he thwarted Colombia’s takers in the last-16 of the 2018 World Cup to give England a rare shoot-out win.

Things were no different during Euro 2024 this summer, as the Everton man consulted the sagely water bottle to guess correctly during the Three Lions’ penalty triumph over Switzerland. 

Pickford was the hero against Switzerland at Euro 2024 – and the cheat sheet helped him again

Pickford dived to save Manuel Akanji’s spot-kick, the only missed penalty of the shootout

City’s Manuel Akanji stepped up to take the first penalty of the game and looked nervous whilst Pickford stared him down.

But it turned out the Swiss defender had a reason to be. Pickford knew where the 28-year-old was going before he even hit the ball.

His note, printed out and stuck to the bottle, read: ‘Dive left’. Pickford duly did and set England on their way. 

Pickford followed his list for three of the four Swiss spot-kicks, only ignoring it for the second penalty, taken by Fabian Schar.

The cheat sheet proved partially correct on each occasion but the goalkeeper was beaten by Xherdan Shaqiri’s fierce effort, while his ‘go low’ instruction for Zeki Amdouni’s kick was negated by the fact he chose to dive left and the Swiss star struck it down the middle.

The save from Akanji took Pickford’s tally of saves at major tournaments to four in 14.