At the start of May, Brighton beat Manchester United 1-0 at the Amex Stadium to give Liverpool a glimmer of hope in the Premier League top-four race.

The defeat for Erik ten Hag’s side saw Liverpool move within four points, although Manchester United still retained a game in hand.

The match-winner for the Seagulls that night was Alexis Mac Allister, and it just so happens that he’s now on the verge of becoming a Liverpool player (via The Guardian).

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Mac Allister’s decisive goal came in the 99th minute, making it the latest strike in a Premier League match since — poetically — Bruno Fernandes snatched three points for United against the Seagulls in September 2020.

Both of those strikes came from the penalty spot, and both 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.