‘He is wrong’ – Jamie Carragher fires back at Everton regular
By now we are all aware of the comments Everton goalkeeper Jordan Pickford made after his high-profile error against Crystal Palace last weekend.
Instead of accepting responsibility for another mistake which allowed the opposition a goal, he lashed out at the media.
He claimed that because he is an England international he gets fiercer criticism than others, while he named Gary Neville specifically.
His comments have elicited a significant reaction from those in the football community, a mostly negative reaction, at that.
Former England international – and Neville’s Sky colleague – Jamie Carragher has now fired back at the Toffees’ number one.
“You start to believe that everyone hates you – the fans, the media, the pundits. The first mistake is to entertain it. Pickford’s second was to tell the world, a bigger error in my view, than the one which allowed Christian Benteke to score his first goal since April,” he wrote in his column for the Daily Telegraph.
“I can tell Jordan now he is wrong. I know because there were times in my career when I thought the same. For a while it felt like the whole world was against me.
“I would say to Pickford that there is no agenda, rather the scrutiny is a consequence of being an England international. It is clear to me that he is struggling with the criticisms, and anybody would, but dealing with it and using it as motivation is one of the great challenges of the game.
“Think of Russia and you think of his decisive penalty save in the shoot-out against Colombia and the brilliant stop earlier in the game from that top-corner bound shot from Mateus Iribe.
“Since then there have been fewer of those great moments. He is a good goalkeeper but not yet a great one and if he is realistic it is now, at 25, and in his third season at Everton that he needs to make that step up to being one of the best in the Premier League.”
Does Carragher have a point?
This is a very considered, well-balanced column from Carragher. He’s not laid into Pickford by any means, but he admits that the ‘keeper should have handled things differently.
There’s very little doubt about that. The criticism had clearly gotten to Pickford, which is half the battle lost already.
As Carragher says, Pickford needs to realise that his game has dipped since the World Cup in 2018.
His form has gotten worse and, instead of being thought of as one of the top shot-stoppers in the country, he is gradually falling by the wayside.
In other Everton news, a journalist has claimed that one Toffees youngster is blowing his teammate out of the water this season.