- Listen to It’s all starting to happen! EUROS DAILY: Gareth Southgate has become a bit cocky… and the mask has fallen
- Pickford saved Manuel Akanji’s first penalty for Switzerland on Saturday evening
- England will now play the Netherlands in a semi-final on Wednesday
Gary Lineker has begged Jordan Pickford to drop his water bottle cheat sheet for the remainder of Euro 2024.
The Everton keeper saved Manuel Akanji’s penalty on Saturday to send England through to the last four of the competition.
Akanji’s miss proved decisive as Alexander-Arnold completed the sudden-death victory 5-3 to secure a place in a semi-final against the Netherlands.
Pickford was particularly praised for his penalty heroics, with fans delighted with his water bottle, which featured a list of the most likely places for each Swiss penalty taker to shoot the ball.
Akanji’s penalty had ‘dive to the left’ written next to his name, which is what Pickford did at that moment.
Jordan Pickford looks on as he holds his water bottle with a list of penalty takers during the Euro 2024 quarter-final
Gary Lineker has begged Pickford to drop his water bottle ‘cheat sheet’ for the rest of the tournament
But former Tottenham and Barcelona striker Lineker has given Pickford some stern advice.
In the podcast Rest is Football he said: ‘One player goes to look at that bottle.
“If you’re going to listen, do it in a different way. Do it on a different piece of paper or in the mail.”
After England’s victory, Luke Shaw and Bukayo Saka praised the penalty shootout as “very calculated”.
Shaw analysed England’s perfect penalty shootout and stressed that he had never doubted for a moment that Alexander-Arnold would miss in this tense situation.
“I was next to him the whole time and I had a lot of confidence in him. He seemed very relaxed and calm. As we said, we have all our routines anyway and we practice them a lot so everyone knows what they are doing,” he told the Lions Den.
“It was very calculated and we all knew what was going to happen. When he got up I had complete confidence and knew he would score.
“Declan was our speaker, he calmed everyone down and told them to do their breathing techniques and manifest them. It was necessary,” he added.
Jordan Pickford’s water bottle told him to ‘dive to his left’ at Akanji’s penalty, which he did
England were taken to penalties by Murat Yakin’s Swiss team on Saturday evening
The Brentford striker showed no sign of nerves as he brought his incredible 11-yard performance to the international stage in England’s penalty shootout win.
Toney was one of five successful players for the Three Lions, including the famous two-step run-up, where he only looked at the keeper.
Foster, who failed to stop Toney from the penalty spot as Watford’s goalkeeper in 2020, revealed that the 28-year-old gave a penalty.
“He makes you look like an absolute idiot,” Foster said on the Football Fill-In podcast. “When you’re standing there and you’re looking at him and he’s looking at you and he’s sauntering towards the ball.
‘And you’re like, “Do you know what you’re doing here?” And then he waits so long until the point where you have to make a decision. You have to.
“But he still waits for you and he just rolls it into the far corner. To have the confidence to be able to do that.
‘He took a penalty for England [against Belgium] and you just know he’s going to score. I had so much confidence in him – exactly the same technique and rolls it into the corner.’