I’d argue that the answer is the same – Jordan Pickford. For some reason I can’t quite gather, the Wearsider never seems to get the credit or praise he deserves.
The thought struck me on Monday night when I was watching Manchester United’s latest capitulation against Everton. Admittedly, there was plenty going on in the game, what with Idrissa Gueye and Michael Keane performing their best impression of Kieron Dyer and Lee Bowyer, and Manchester United taking their levels of collective ineptitude to remarkable new levels, but I was still struck by the way in which Pickford’s magnificent performance in goal for Everton was largely ignored.
The former Sunderland player was a clear Man of the Match, making a string of superb saves while constantly encouraging and cajoling the rest of his ten-man team, yet his excellence was barely mentioned.
The same was true earlier this month when the national media tied itself up in knots debating whether Jude Bellingham or Harry Kane is England’s best or most important player. Why wasn’t Pickford front, right and centre of that debate?
There’s a general tendency within football to underplay the importance of goalkeepers – when was the last time a keeper was even considered in the debate for Player of the Season or the Ballon d’Or – so that partly explains why Pickford tends to get shunted into the shadows so readily.
But it doesn’t completely account for the regularity with which his talents are downplayed. I think the 31-year-old is probably paying the price for the early years of his career, when he was regarded as headstrong and error-prone, clattering into Virgil van Dijk in a Merseyside derby or leaving his line for balls he was never going to catch.
That’s the best part of a decade ago now, though. In the last three or four seasons, on both the domestic and international stages, Pickford has consistently been one of the best and most consistent goalkeepers in the country.
His statistics back that up, despite the fact he’s been playing for an Everton side that have spent pretty much all the last decade battling in the bottom half of the table.
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In the 2023-24 season, Pickford’s save percentage of 73.9 per cent had him fourth in the Premier League rankings. Last season, his stats held firm at 73 per cent and had him ranked third of all the keepers who had played ten or more league games. And that, don’t forget, was in an Everton team that was in freefall prior to the return of David Moyes.
This season, Pickford’s save percentage is up to 75 per cent, better than every other goalkeeper bar Robin Roefs and his England team-mate, Dean Henderson, who are just a shade ahead of him.
Pickford’s impact is about so much more than making saves, though. As Monday’s game highlighted, he is the beating heart of his Everton side, constantly organising the defenders in front of him. He acts decisively from set-pieces, lifting the pressure from his back four, and remains one of the best distributors, either long or short, in the English game. Goalkeepers are expected to be sweepers and long-pass experts now – as anyone who watched Pickford breaking into the first team at Sunderland can attest, in that aspect of his play, he has always been well ahead of the game.
He's equally as effective and influential with England. Again, there seems to be a lingering sense that when Pickford lines up for his country, there’s the risk of an accident waiting to happen. But when was the last time he made a glaring error in an England shirt? You’re going to have to have a long memory to dredge that up.
I’d argue that when it comes to England’s biggest matches in the last five or six years, Pickford has been the country’s best and most consistent player. That’s certainly been the case in the last four major tournaments. Kane has tended to underperform in tournament football, Bellingham has shone brightly on occasion, Raheem Sterling had a stellar tournament at Euro 2021 but then disappeared from the scene without trace.
Pickford has been the constant high-level star though, whether via his penalty shootout heroics against Colombia at the 2018 World Cup, his crucial saves against Germany in the Euro 2021 knockout game or his general excellence throughout last year’s Euros. When England needed him, he always delivered.
That’s the sign of a top-class goalkeeper, and perhaps it’s to Pickford’s credit that his brilliance is now regarded as routine. I think that’s unfair on him though. In an era when even average players tend to get put on a pedestal, Pickford deserves much more praise than he gets.