Aaron Ramsdale has revealed England have been practising penalties without goalkeepers to improve their dreadful spot kick record ahead of the World Cup in Qatar.
The Three Lions have struggled from 12 yards in previous tournament, suffering defeats on penalties at the 1990, 1998 and 2006 World Cups. They were also knocked out on penalties at Euro '96, Euro 2004, Euro 2012 and in the final of Euro 2020 at Wembley.
Yet Gareth Southgate is determined to eradicate England's penalty hoodoo. Their record has improved recently, winning against Colombia at the World Cup in Russia four years ago. They were also victorious against Switzerland in the Nations League in 2019.
Southgate has banished Ramsdale and his fellow goalkeepers from saving penalties in training because it's hampering the takers' confidence. The Three Lions are instead are practicing spot kicks by using a skill net that forces players to hit the corners.
England's goalkeepers will not practise saving penalties with their team-mates until later in the tournament. "It can become detrimental if they are taking them against goalkeepers because we then start to know where they are going," explained Ramsdale.
"If I know where you are going seven times out of ten and I start cheating and going early and start saving them, you might start worrying about it. We have something which is called a skills net where the corners are open.
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"At the moment the lads are just working on technique. Everybody can take penalties, it is just those fine pressure-margins which we can’t recreate out there unfortunately."
England's World Cup campaign starts against Iran at the Khalifa International Stadium on Monday before taking on the United states at the Al Bayt Stadium four days later. Their final group game is against neighbours Wales at the Al Rayyan Stadium on November 29.
Should England progress from Group B, they will face one of the Netherlands, Ecuador, Senegal or hosts Qatar in the last 16 - with that fixture taking place on either December 3 or 4. That's when the Three Lions will need to prepared for a potential penalty shootout.
Ramsdale has admitted he will not purposely concede a penalty in training to boost the confidence of others. He added: "Start by aiming at where you are going to go in the skills net, take a couple against the goalkeeper and we go from there.
"There are various things we can do but we are never told to let one in. We would refuse to do that. There are certain things which we do naturally, such as if I know you are going left, but your run-up tells me you are going right, I am going to dive that way.
"Just because I know you are going that way does not mean I am going to dive that way. I will try to do things properly. Then there are times when they will get us to behave like the opposition goalie.
"I remember in the last camp when we played Germany and Harry scored his penalty, the day before I was in goal and tried to do what [Marc-Andre] Ter Stegen was going. He dived low and Harry aimed high and that came out in the game."
