Everton: Jordan Pickford slammed for ‘really bad’ moment by Jamie Redknapp
Everton were punished with their second successive defeat on Saturday (15 October) as Tottenham Hotspur eased to a 2-0 win.
A tight first half saw the Toffees have arguably the better chances to take the lead but Antonio Conte’s side turned the screw in the second half with Harry Kane and Pierre-Emile Hojbjerg scoring the goals.
Everton were left to chase the game after goalkeeper Jordan Pickford spilt what should have been an easy save and Kane nipped in to snatch the ball away and the England number one had to foul his Three Lions teammate.
Spurs’ top scorer duly smashed the ball home and Jamie Redknapp was not in any mood to sympathise with Pickford on the Sky Sports Football podcast after the game.
“That’s a back pass, he’s got to save that,” Redknapp said. “I don’t care what you say, that is a really bad piece of goalkeeping. It’s definitely a penalty.”
Let him off
Given how many times Everton have been saved by the brilliance of Pickford, Frank Lampard and the club’s supporters should probably let him off one poor mistake even if he himself will be annoyed by it.
His time on Merseyside won’t be defined by one simple error that can happen to anybody in any given game and nobody should be throwing him under the bus for it.
Redknapp has to analyse everything in his role as a pundit for Sky Sports and he is not wrong that Pickford was very poor at that moment and possibly cost Everton the game.
But the Toffees should have also been in front prior to the incident having created the best chances of the first half and failed to take any of them.
Lampard will have to chalk this down as a game that got away from them but Conte’s Spurs are a very well-drilled side that sit third in the league so defeat in their own backyard is not an embarrassing result.