Pickford’s penalty antics put off Haaland before his big MISS for Man City

Jordan Pickford was up to his old tricks again for Manchester City as he made a series of unpleasant faces to distract Erling Haaland before the striker missed his penalty.

The home side, who come into the match having won just one Premier League game in the last eight and conceding a slew of goals, let off some pressure early in the game after Bernardo Silva's deflected effort found the Everton net .

But City's now familiar problems reared their heads again as Pep Guardiola's men struggled to create key chances and the Toffees made them pay late in the half when Iliman Ndiaye made a great effort to level things up .

However, Everton appeared to have blown it when Vitalii Mykolenko was fouled in his own area after 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 brief build-up, Haaland stepped up to take the penalty, taking a deep breath before beginning his usual short, stuttering run-up.

Never one to shy away from a big occasion, Pickford continued his antics by diving low to save the weak spot-kick before Bernardo Silva drank a ball back in, which Haaland nodded home.

But the goal was ruled out for offside, leaving the score at 1–1 and Everton managed to see out the remaining half hour to secure a crucial point against struggling City.

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

England's number one, always a stickler for statistics, scanned the source before facing Haaland from the spot.

The bottle contained detailed information about each player's strongest foot, as well as the percentage of penalties they aim centrally, left and right.

The combination of Pickford's distraction techniques and pre-match preparation saw Haaland hit his kick weakly to the center left of the goal, causing the Everton star to correctly guess the correct direction.

The save kept the level of play intact and the away side even had a few chances to take all three points at the Etihad, squandering late counter-attacks.

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