▷▷▷ Plans for English to tackle shoot-out woes

It is hard not to have England come to mind when the words penalty shootout come up in discussion. Since World Cup 1990 the English have taken part in seven shoot-outs at major tournaments and only managed to win one of them, against Spain at Euro 1996. Struggling from 12 yards has proven to be the undoing of many an English national team manager, so it is perhaps unsurprising that Gareth Southgate, with one eye on next summer’s World Cup in Russia, is thinking of ways of making his players more relaxed at taking spotkicks. Southgate revealed doing a mock shoot-out in front of a live crowd in a friendly may well be on the horizon. “It’s something that we are considering – how we prepare best for penalty shoot-outs,” he said. “Whether that’s something on the training ground, whether that’s in sessions we do away from the training ground, or something we do in some sort of match scenario. We’ve not finalised that yet but clearly that (match situation) is an option.”