Incoming midfielder Alexis Mac Allister has a key weapon to offer Liverpool after Mohamed Salah’s failings left Jürgen Klopp with a decision to make last season.
Brighton’s 1-0 victory over Manchester United at the Amex Stadium at the beginning of May gave Liverpool some hope in the battle for a top-four Premier League finish.
Although Manchester United still had a game in hand, Liverpool moved within four points of Erik ten Hag’s team thanks to their setback.
Alexis Mac Allister, who was the Seagulls’ game-winning player that evening, is currently close to joining Liverpool (per The Guardian).
The game-winning goal by Mac Allister was scored in the 99th minute, making it the most recent goal in a Premier League game since — poetically — Bruno Fernandes secured three points for United against the Seagulls in September 2020.
Both of those strikes were penalty kicks, and both of them were were a display of supreme composure in a do-or-die moment.
Indeed, Mac Allister is something of a specialist when it comes to spot-kicks, having netted nine of 10 in his professional career, as per Transfermarkt.
His only miss came in an away game against Wolves last season, and even then he made amends from 12 yards in the very same half, with Brighton going on to win 3-0.
Since then, he’s scored seven penalties in a row, or eight if you include the one in the FA Cup semi-final shoot-out against Manchester United (again) in April.
Only Manchester City’s Erling Haaland (seven) scored more from the spot than the Argentine (six) in 2022/23.
Watching Mac Allister’s seven successful penalties from this season, a couple of clear trends emerge.
The first is the variety of his placement — three went right, three left and one down the middle.
In terms of height, he favored the top corner (four times), which is of course a high-risk, high-reward strategy.
Mac Allister found the top right corner against Brentford and in the FA Cup tie against Manchester United, the only time he put consecutive spot-kicks in the same place.
He preferred to mix things up from one penalty to the next, making it almost impossible for goalkeepers to prepare.
The other trend was the quality of the finishing. All but one of his penalties wound up in the corner or the side-netting, with the inevitable exception of his down-the-middle strike against Leicester. That points to Mac Allister’s near-robotic coolness under this unique pressure.
By contrast, Liverpool’s primary penalty taker Mohamed Salah missed two straight penalties earlier in the season, failing to even work the goalkeeper against Bournemouth or Arsenal.
At that stage, Jürgen Klopp said he would hold talks with the Egyptian over whether he should remain in the role, but ultimately decided to back him.
He was rewarded with successful efforts in back-to-back games against Spurs and Fulham at the end of April/start of May.
But still, confidence around Salah in these situations will have diminished, not least because he also missed a couple in the 2021/22 season.
In Mac Allister, Liverpool may soon have a more reliable option at its disposal.
It feels unlikely that Klopp will take Salah off penalties given his status within the club and obsession with individual goal-scoring milestones, even though he’s admitted that he doesn’t enjoy the role.
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