Jordan Henderson chooses between James Milner and Mohamed Salah to take a penalty
Speaking in an interview with Joe Cole for BT Sport as quoted by Liverpool Echo, club captain Jordan Henderson revealed that he would pick James Milner to take a penalty over Mohamed Salah if his life depended on it.
The English international midfielder felt that the veteran footballer would be the better bet and the safer option to take the penalty over his Egyptian teammate who also has a very good record at it.
Liverpool haven’t really had the chance to flex their penalty-taking prowess this season with the Reds yet to be awarded one since the season started. They did however get one in the Community Shield final against Manchester City which Salah took.
James Milner is an extremely reliable penalty taker from the spot. The versatile footballer has taken 35 penalties in his career until now, managing to convert 30 of them into goals and last missing a penalty in 2017.
Mohamed Salah on the other hand is Liverpool first choice penalty-taker for quite some time now. The Egyptian superstar has managed to convert 28 of the 33 chances that he has had from the spot until now.
As we can see, there is not much to split in terms of numbers between both the players although most of Salah’s attempts have come over the last three-four seasons whilst Milner has a much longer period.
Other than the duo, the Reds have other quality penalty-takers in the squad as well. Fabinho is excellent at penalties and has been entrusted with the responsibility in the past and so has Jordan Henderson. Thiago is another player who has an excellent penalty technique but he does not take responsibility often.
Right now, it is very evident that Salah is Liverpool’s first-choice spot-kick taker and his numbers are only set to improve. However, Henderson has chosen to trust Milner over the Egyptian.
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Regardless of all this, ultimately, all that this means is that Liverpool have a number of good penalty-takers in the squad and this especially comes to the forefront in situations like the two penalty shootouts last season.
