Huddersfield Town have ideal weapon to nullify Brice Samba's Nottingham Forest penalty heroics

Brice Samba has attracted plenty of plaudits for his impressive performance in Nottingham Forest’s penalty shootout win over Sheffield United in the play-off semi finals, with the goalkeeper saving three of the Blades’ five spot kicks to help send his side to Wembley.

Huddersfield Town had meanwhile got through their own semi-final against Luton Town without the need for penalties after settling their second leg within 90 minutes – so it may have escaped the attention of some pundits that the Terriers have a bit of a penalty specialist of their own in goal for the final.

Lee Nicholls proved as much in his very first outing between the sticks for Town. Their League Cup clash away to Sheffield Wednesday on 1st August went down to penalties following a goalless draw, with Town putting away all four of their efforts and Nicholls saving two of the Owls’.

He said after that game: “Personally, I like penalties. I just think there’s no pressure on keepers. I think you just need to make sure you do your homework and when you come to it just make sure that if you go the right way, make sure you save it.”

When you look at Nicholls’ record, it’s no wonder he feels that way. Transfermarkt’s data can be patchy and we had to go digging through his record in shootouts as their own collated numbers only record efforts taken within games. But if our calculations are right, then across his spells at Milton Keynes Dons and Huddersfield Town, Nicholls has faced 52 penalties, saving 13 with a further six put off target.

If that 25% save rate sounds underwhelming, it isn’t. An InStat study of over 100,000 penalties found that the average male goalkeeper saves 17.6% of the penalties they face, putting Nicholls some way above the usual