Sam Allardyce has delivered a warning to Everton and England goalkeeper Jordan Pickford, after The Sun posted video footage of a brawl in Sunderland.
The Sun reported that Pickford had been drinking all day and got caught up in the fracas after watching his old team Sunderland lose to Portsmouth on penalties in the Checkatrade Trophy.
Footage seemingly shows him throwing a couple of punches, although Pickford had been dragged off by friends before the police arrived. The Sun claim an investigation has been launched.
Talking on talkSPORT (Alan Brazil Sports Breakfast Show, Tuesday, 7am), Sam Allardyce warned that “Without discipline you have nothing” but said it would be a big shame if people got the impression that Pickford wasn’t the right man for England.
“Jordan’s character is why he is such a good goalkeeper,” Allardyce said. “He won’t be the same player if you don’t allow him to be that character. He just needs to choose better places to go out and make better decisions.
“If things carry on getting written about him like this then there will be an impression that he’s the wrong player for the job, and that’s a great shame when he’s done so much, not just for England, but for Everton as well.
“The code of conduct is the basis for your discipline in life. When we represent a football club we wear that, we travel like this, we look to promote ourselves in the right line.
“We all agree to that, that upholds a player to what the code of conducts says. If it turns out be something they don’t like, like a fine, you can say, well you signed up for this. Without discipline you have nothing, you can’t be successful without discipline.”
OPINION
It’s not easy being a young footballer these days. According to a Guardian report, Pickford was subject to insults and dealt with them in a good natured way before things turned ugly after his fiancé was insulted. The problem is, Pickford can’t really expect anything different if he goes out drinking all day. As a Premier League and England goalkeeper, he has different standards to live up to – as pointed out by Allardyce. And like Allardyce said, without discipline, a footballer has nothing. The worst thing for Pickford is that this comes on the back of some poor performances and manager Marco Silva saying he needed to find more ‘emotional balance‘. This certainly wouldn’t have been what he was looking for and Pickford must learn his lesson and get back to what he does best. Pickford has made himself England’s number one and put in some brilliant performances at the last World Cup, and needs to re-focus. This incident doesn’t look too bad and Pickford can put it behind him, but he certainly doesn’t need any more headlines like this following him around.