Pundit claims Jordan Pickford's penalty water bottle gave him an 'unfair advantage'

Jordan Pickford had an 'unfair advantage' when saving James Maddison's penalty, in relegation scrap between Everton and Leicester City, according to one pundit.

It was a real 'six pointer' at the King Power Stadium on Monday night, as Leicester hosted fellow strugglers Everton, in a must not lose for both sides.

Ahead of the game, Leicester fans had been met with the news that Maddison, their main hope of survival, is going to leave this summer, whether they go down or not.

Certainly the quality on display for both sides suggested exactly why they were near the bottom of the league, which made for a thoroughly entertaining game.

Dominic Calvert-Lewin put the visitors 1-0 up from the penalty spot, after just 15 minutes, only for Caglar Soyuncu to equalise seven minutes later.

Maddison then set up Jamie Vardy, after some sloppy play by Alex Iwobi, to make it 2-1, before Calvert-Lewin and Vardy both somehow missed excellent chances to double their tallys, within seconds of each other.

Then the excitement really ratcheted up in injury time of the first half, as Maddison had a penalty saved by Pickford, sending the keeper into pure euphoria.

He was helped by a water bottle that showed exactly where the Foxes' star was going to put his spot kick, straight down the middle, which, according to Jamie O'Hara, was 'unfair.'

🤔 “Pickford and the water bottle… Do you think that should be allowed?”

😳 “It gives an unfair advantage to the goalkeeper. I don’t know if I like it.”

Jamie O’Hara isn’t sure if he’s a fan of Jordan Pickford having penalty homework on his water bottle on the pitch pic.twitter.com/y8tBpPRfIa

— talkSPORT (@talkSPORT) May 1, 2023

How anyone can really suggest that any goalkeeper has an advantage at a penalty is beyond ridiculous, seeing as it's a free shot from 12 yards out.

Clearly, Sean Dyche's backroom staff had done some excellent research on the former Norwich City player putting 60% of his spot kicks down the middle.

Pickford may have also faced some penalties from the 26-year-old in England training, making the bottle less impactful anyway.

Jason Cundy suggested that Maddison could have had a note in his sock to 'even' the advantage up, or he could have just gone a different way.

In fact, it's just over a week since we saw the old water bottle trick not work at all, with David de Gea consulting his 'cheatsheet' in Manchester United's FA Cup semi-final win over Brighton.

The keeper got nowhere near any of the attempts and instead had to rely on Solly March blazing his effort over the crossbar, whilst United stuck all their attempts away.