Jordan Pickford has gone on record saying that, should the opportunity present itself, he wouldn’t be averse to taking a penalty for England at the World Cup this summer.
While he’s more au fait with the other side of the equation, the goalkeeper claims he has “no issue” with stepping up in a shootout should it ever come to that.
Speaking to ESPN, Pickford, who looks likely to go to Russia as England’s first-choice ‘keeper, said:
If I need to step up, I’ll take one. I’ve got no issue with that. Taking the [winning] penalty or saving one, I’ll be happy either way.
I’ve never taken one in a shootout but I’m always practising in training.
The 24-year-old stopper also confirmed that the Three Lions have been diligently practising their spot-kicks ahead of the tournament.
Behind the scenes we’re doing a lot of work to get preparation for how we’d want to go about it.
There are a lot of good penalty takers here and we’ve been practising the last couple of days… it’s been hard to save them.
Hang on, are we to infer that, while hard, Pickford has still been saving these aforementioned penalties?
Suddenly we don’t feel quite so reassured.