Michael Ball tackles the big issues at Hill Dickinson Stadium ahead of Everton's game with Aston Villa
There has been talk that Jordan Pickford wants to finish his career at Everton and talks are about to start to strike a new deal to make that happen. Evertonians know how valuable Jordan is to the football club as he’s saved us on numerous occasions, season after season, and keeping us in the Premier League has been down to his important saves at times.Of course he makes mistakes here and there – we want improvement from every player and you can’t miss him out – but he feels like he’s part of our family. We can criticise him at times because we’re Evertonians who see him week in and week out, but we feel very protective of him when he receives what we consider to be unfair scrutiny from outside the Everton bubble.Incredibly, some within the national media who don’t watch him on a regular basis, will often question why he is England number one, but the truth is that he’s head and shoulders England’s best goalkeeper – by far. I don’t know what Jordan has to do to keep proving that point to some but as Evertonians, we don’t care, so long as he is putting in performances for us and making us a better team in the Premier League.
If he does well for England then fantastic. But then he does, his record for his country is second to none, so how the doubters can keep having a pop, I don’t know.They might not like his character but that doesn’t determine whether you’re a good footballer or not. His shot-stopping while on international duty has been unbelievable and he should be getting lots of plaudits.
Most importantly, he’s doing it for the club he’s under contract with and that’s Everton. If he wants to finish his career here and remain until he hangs up his gloves, then I’m all for that.He’s been England number one from early on in his first season with us and given Everton’s struggles for several years, some have felt he might move on to another club who are competing. If he was unhappy, then he could have probably forced a transfer if he’d wanted to, but Jordan has always seemed really happy here and the environment that he is in.Perhaps if he’d gone elsewhere, he might have even been paid more money, but he’s been loyal to the football club because of his performances and while it’s not going to be a cheap contract, Everton can offer him a deal he is very happy with and it’s well worth it. If Jordan is looking to remain here for the rest of his career, then I’m sure an agreement can be reached to make that happen.You can see it with Jordan’s character and how he presents himself off the field, I don’t think that the spotlight he is put under bothers him one bit, it’s like water off a duck’s back for him. He knows how good he is and how valuable he is to the football club and if he does make a mistake then he holds his hand up and takes responsibility for it.He doesn’t let it impact on his performance, and we’ve watched him grow and mature as both a player and a person over the years.We’ve had Tim Howard who did fantastically well for a few seasons and before him, Nigel Martyn finished his career really well at Goodison Park, but I think he’s the best goalkeeper we’ve had at Everton since Neville Southall.If you look back at the years when Nev was at the football club, it was an absolute pleasure and privilege for me to share the pitch with him at the start of my time at Everton and towards the end of his. It was a box that I never thought I’d tick off.As a player, Nev was the sort of goalkeeper who inspired children to get out into the garden or in the park, diving all over the place and covered in mud, trying to emulate his heroics, like the double saves that he’d do. This new generation are all doing the same with Jordan Pickford and you see that with the number of Pickford shirts you see as all the youngsters who are goalies want to be him.Jordan is great with the fans when he’s out and about and he’s got that connection with the fanbase – he loves that song we’ve got for him now. He returns the favour through his top performances, saving penalties and making other important saves.
Grealish will be up for Villa after Blues' derby joy
I’m not a fan of this first international break of the season at all. We all look forward to a new season ahead and then all of a sudden, we get this stoppage thrown amongst us.
Over the previous last few years, it’s been quite a negative start for Everton where we haven’t been getting points on the board and while you want your manager working to try and improve things with his players at Finch Farm, they get taken away on international duty. This season has been quite refreshing though as, apart from the difficult start away at Leeds, a performance that we weren’t proud of, David Moyes and the lads have bounced back with three wins in a week before the break.
Now, Evertonians can’t wait to get back to Hill Dickinson Stadium to watch the team play and we’re counting the days down to offer our support against an Aston Villa side who have done brilliantly over the past couple of seasons.
Because I’d initially left Everton to join Rangers and then gone to play in Dutch football with PSV, it was a long time until I came back to Goodison Park as an opponent but whenever you play a former side – especially your boyhood team – it’s always a big deal. Jack Grealish has already been and done that against Aston Villa with Manchester City, but he might have fancied going back there this summer, so that might give him an extra incentive to show what he can do.
David Moyes showed a lot of faith and support towards Jack though and he’s already become a big favourite with Blues fans so both club and player will feel like they’ve made the right choice and will be looking forwards to more good times ahead. Speaking of which, Everton Women got their season off to a great start at Anfield with a 4-1 win while the Blues’ younger academy groups had some really good results against Liverpool over this past week with wins for the Under-9s, U10s, U11s and U12s who enjoyed a 5-0 victory.