Jordan Pickford is the hero again, so get ready to rave. But, jokes aside, has there ever been a player with a greater disparity between popular opinion and actual performance than Everton’s England number one?
In this volatile era of ‘fake news’, in which the lines between reality and rhetoric are blurred with social media encouraging like-minded individuals to push their personal agendas in echo chambers where the sound of their own opinions reverberates, rather than examining the facts around a situation, many people who might not watch Pickford play as often as either this correspondent or many readers of this article who have had the opportunity to see him perform heroics for the Blues
Penalty shoot-outs have often been England’s Achilles heel over the years – Everton’s as well, since despite winning their first European competition against Borussia Monchengladbach, they’ve only won six of 18 – but Pickford has consistently excelled in such situations. He saved the winning penalty from prolific Carlos Bacca in the 2018 World Cup victory over Colombia; again against Italy in the last European Championship final from Andrea Belotti and Jorginho, only for the Three Lions’ three misses to result in defeat; and now from Switzerland’s Manuel Akanji. Those four shoot-out saves are twice as many as all of England’s goalkeepers unit combined from 1990 to 2012. He has also kept more big tournament clean sheets than any other English goalkeeper.
Unlike the frequent taunting that Pickford continues to receive from his detractors, comments that both Everton legend Neville Southall and the late Kevin Campbell described as “a witch hunt,” these, as Rafael Benitez might say, are “facts.” Even throughout the tournament, supporters of England’s games on television have had to endure a constant barrage of Pickford criticism from the experts on their screens.
According to ITV’s Lee Dixon, having Pickford yell at him during matches didn’t help his game. Dixon also mentioned that he often forgot about David Seaman when the goalkeeper was playing behind him, possibly because he was focused on aligning with the rest of the Arsenal back four and raising their arms for another offside appeal. The BBC’s Alan Shearer criticized Pickford’s long-range kicking during the quarter-final against Switzerland. However, this appears to be a personal criticism of the Everton player’s game, despite the fact that he is a former Newcastle striker.
Unlike observations of whether Pickford should have got close to a certain shot or not – by the way, he made a smart stop to deny substitute Zeki Amdouni in the dying moments to send the game to penalties – surely a big factor in whether a keeper is going long or short with his distribution, particularly from goal kicks, is his manager’s instructions? But, once again, the 30-year-old, who has gained all 66 caps as an Everton player, breaking Phil Jagielka’s previous club record of 40 Three Lions appearances while with the Blues, has never failed his country on the international stage.
Indeed, in a tournament in which we expected England to have an embarrassment of attacking riches but be let down by defensive frailties, Pickford has once again proven to be Mr Dependable, producing numbers that his predecessors, including Dixon’s aforementioned former teammate Seaman, dubbed ‘Safe Hands,’ could not achieve. Pickford’s ranting is not just an angry rant since he is a passionate leader at the rear wanting the best from those in front of him.
Some would try to paint him as a loose cannon, but Pickford, the English goalkeeper with the most clean sheets in the Premier League last season (13, with Crystal Palace’s Sam Johnstone coming in second with six), actually puts a lot of thought into what he does, as evidenced by his meticulous planning for the shoot-out with his water bottle crib sheet. Even yet, some bizarre, misguided individuals attempted to portray this as a form of cheating.
Despite failing to beat their last four opponents Denmark, Slovenia, Slovakia, and Switzerland in 90 minutes, England, who were eliminated in the group stage with a hat-trick of defeats the last time the European Championship was held in Germany in 1988, are now just a game away from their first major tournament final on foreign soil. Standing in their way is a Netherlands team led by Ronald Koeman, who brought Pickford to Everton from Sunderland in 2017, albeit the duo only worked together for three months before the Dutchman was fired.
Although Pickford has only ever played for Gareth Southgate at international level, he has had seven Blues managers in as many years – nine if you include caretakers David Unsworth and Duncan Ferguson – but he still enjoys life at Goodison Park, ensuring Evertonians will continue to stand up for the man they see as “Our Jordan” and double down against the abuse from outsiders that inexplicably comes his way. With the significant changes in Parliament following the General Election back home, we’ve heard a lot about “change” in the last week.
Curiously, Prime Minister Harold Wilson, who represented the Merseyside constituency of Huyton during his two terms in 10 Downing Street, remarked, “Have you noticed how we only win the World Cup under a Labour government?” Whether that political peculiarity is duplicated or not at the Euros, we must also see a significant shift in how the rest of the football world perceives Everton’s Jordan Pickford.
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