Former Everton striker Andy Gray has delivered his assessment of Toffees goalkeeper Jordan Pickford’s critical error against Liverpool on Sunday.
The England number one cost Everton a share of the spoils in their 1-0 defeat at Anfield as he made a mess of a looping Virgil van Dijk effort, allowing Divock Origi to steal in and secure all three points for Jurgen Klopp’s side.
Gray gave his point of view after the game: “Listen there’s not a footballer alive who’s never made an error in a football match,” he told beIN SPORTS. “It won’t be Jordan Pickford’s last error.
“He’s a top goalkeeper who is going to play hundreds and hundreds of games and he’s going to make mistakes, but it’s in a Merseyside derby, it’s in stoppage time, it’s in the last attack of the game and he does that. It’s tough for him to take and I feel for the kid today,” he finished.
"He's a top goalkeeper and he's going to make mistakes. But it's in a Merseyside derby. It's in stoppage time and he does that. I feel for the kid today."
Poor Jordan Pickford – will he get over the howler? #beINPL #LIVEVE pic.twitter.com/NjBnUcNzNV
— beIN SPORTS (@beINSPORTS_EN) December 2, 2018
OPINION
This is a very sympathetic and well-reasoned assessment of the situation by Gray. Of course Pickford made a mistake, we all know that, but he’ll be feeling bad as it is – he doesn’t need every Tom, Dick and Harry burying him as well. Like Gray says, Pickford is a top goalkeeper, we’ve seen that with both Everton and England, but the fact remains that he cost his team today. It was a critical moment in the game and the Toffees were moments away from securing a precious away point at Anfield, so for him to make an error like that was nightmarish for Marco Silva’s men. But, look, the former Sunderland man is a young ‘keeper and he will learn from this. He has decades to go in his career and he will likely look back at this as a turning point for him. Everton really should have got something from the game but it wasn’t meant to be. That was due to Pickford’s mistake, but it’s good to see Gray lending a bit of sympathy to the young man.