Sky Sports pundit rages at Alex Iwobi as Everton drop points and Jordan Pickford goes ‘berserk’
Garry Birtles was outraged at the Everton defending that led to Brentford’s equaliser, and in particular Alex Iwobi’s role in the goal.
Despite the home side hitting both posts and the bar during the game, a strong performance from Jordan Pickford behind a shaky-looking defence looked to be keeping the Bees at bay
Anthony Gordon’s well-taken first-half opener appeared set to somehow be enough for the Toffees to record a first win of the season until a late corner was flicked onto the back post where Vitaly Janelt was in acres of space to tap in, leaving the Everton keeper to rage at his teammates in the 1-1 draw, while Birtles, a Sky Sports pundit, did the same.
Speaking live on the world feed match commentary on Saturday (27 August, 4.43pm) he said: “I tell you what, that defending was abysmal, absolutely abysmal. Look at this, how many blue shirts are there? There’s the flick, who’s picking up [who]? Look at Iwobi, stood there not looking. This is scandalous defending.
“It looked offside there but Iwobi, he’s just stood there look, what’s he doing!? How many blue shirts can you see there? Four in a line with no red and white shirts there. One man in there scores a goal, that is shocking.
“Pickford’s going mad, and rightly so.”
He went on: “Pickford’s still going absolutely berserk at his defenders… Iwobi was just looking at nothing but there were four teammates also doing similar. Nobody picked anybody up, all of them were like statues, and it was just a simple tap in.
“It’s a flick on, then somebody else picks up. Nobody was watching what was going on whatsoever, and I think that’s what’s annoyed Pickford so much.”
Let down
Over the course of the game Brentford probably deserved to score, but their own bad luck and some terrible finishing prevented that from happening for long periods.
Having reached the final 10 minutes with the lead it was thoroughly deflating for such a sloppy goal to be the undoing of a first win of the season.
Three points would have been an excellent reward for an uneven but battling display, and would have put a more positive shine on the opening weeks of the Everton campaign.
A second game unbeaten in succession is not to be sniffed at, and the goal from Anthony Gordon was excellent in it’s simplicity and execution.
But Pickford was forced into action far more than anyone would have liked considering there were five defenders in his side.
It was little wonder that he was so furious to lose his clean sheet, as set-piece defending feels like such a basic way to throw away two points.
Iwobi was possibly the unlucky one who just happened to look most guilty on replays since none of his teammates were anyway near the Brentford scorer, but he was caught ball-watching and didn’t react anywhere near fast enough to the flick on.
Gordon, Amadou Onana, and Pickford were positives for sure, but a late leveller always puts a dampener on the occasion.