PLAY SPOT THE KEEPER

ENGLAND are practising penalties in Qatar – but without goalkeepers. Keeper Aaron Ramsdale said: “We haven’t done any with goalkeepers. It’s something called a ‘skills net’ where the lads are working on technique.

“I think it can become detrimental if they are taking them against goalkeepers because we then start to know where they are going.

“We can start to gamble a little bit, especially when we don’t want to get scored on all the time. So the later rounds we’ll start seeing them introduced into more pressurised ones with the goalkeepers.

“It was very similar to the Euros in terms of honing in on which corner you want to go to and being able to constantly hit that part of the net. It becomes difficult if I know where you are going seven times out of 10 and I start cheating and going early, you might start worrying about it.”

When keepers are in the net, Ramsdale has even been used to mimic goalkeepers and it worked a treat for Harry Kane’s penalty against Germany (below) in September.

“There are times when they will get us to behave like the opposition goalie,” said Ramsdale. “I remember in the last camp when we played Germany and Harry scored his penalty. The day before the match I was in goal and tried to do what Ter Stegen might do.”