Monday night will be an emotional one for Jordan Pickford as he returns to Sunderland for the first time since leaving the club in the summer of 2017.
Pickford departed the Stadium of Light following the Black Cats’ relegation to the Championship, joining Everton for a £25million plus add-ons fee that was scorned by many at the time.
Since then, both parties have gone in very different directions, with Pickford becoming England No.1 and playing in a World Cup semi-final and two consecutive European Championship finals, all thanks to his consistently brilliant exploits at Everton.
Sunderland, meanwhile, fell as far as eighth in League One, before finally returning to the top flight this summer after eight years away.
But putting aside the emotion, Pickford has a job to do on Monday, and it’s one he usually does so well. However, despite all of his feats with the Toffees and Three Lions, he’s a goalkeeper who is still so often overlooked, unduly criticised and forgotten when it comes to naming the Premier League‘s best right now.
Everything Pickford has done for Everton and England, however, proves he deserves his seat among the elite goalkeepers in the game.
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Pickford heroics save Everton time and again
Since joining Everton, Pickford has clocked up 27,133 Premier League minutes across 302 appearances, sitting almost 1,000 clear of anybody else in the former and four ahead of closest challenger Mohamed Salah in the latter.
Those figures are testament to Pickford’s incredible consistency, both in terms of looking after his body and putting in the performances to maintain his status as Everton No.1.
During that time, he’s made more saves (906) than any other Premier League goalkeeper, while his goals prevented tally of 74.35 is bettered only by Martin Dubravka (75.63), David de Gea (88.79), Mathew Ryan (89.28) and Nick Pope (89.68).
Pickford came up with a host of incredible stops during the 2021/22 and 2022/23 seasons to help Everton avoid what would have been an unthinkable relegation. Across those two seasons combined — when Everton finished 16th and 17th — he was the Premier League’s busiest goalkeeper with 241 saves, including 158 saves from shots inside the box.
His stop to maintain a clean sheet in a 1-0 win over Chelsea in May 2022 should go down as one of the greatest in Premier League history, and was a key moment as Everton started to claw their way out of trouble under Frank Lampard.
“Pickford’s saves have kept Everton’s dreams alive,” former Everton midfielder Leon Osman told BBC Radio 5 Live at the time.
“That [Azpilicueta] save was incredible. Pickford has been criticised in the past because he has a tendency to do something rash. But not today. It was arguably his best-ever game for Everton in Everton’s most important game of the season.
“If Everton had lost today, you would have felt they were out of the Premier League, and the fans knew how important this was.”
Whenever Everton have needed him most, Pickford has been there, standing taller than anyone else in royal blue.
Pickford’s elite passing range
Of course, a huge part of any goalkeeper’s job nowadays is to be able to use his feet, giving defenders an extra option in possession and launching attacks with pinpoint long balls.
Once again, few can compete with Pickford in this regard.
Since the start of 2017/18, Pickford is one of just 13 goalkeepers to provide an assist in the Premier League, and is one of only six to do so more than once, joining Ederson, Alisson, Mark Flekken, Jonas Lossl and Jose Sa in this exclusive club.
His 18 chances created is more than any other Premier League goalkeeper during this period, and even breaking this down to a per 90 basis, it’s the fifth-highest amount among players with 1,000+ minutes.
Of course, there have been plenty of times when Pickford has been playing for defensive Everton sides simply looking to survive. At international level, his passing numbers translate far better, playing for an England side to reach back-to-back finals.
Across the last two Euros combined, Pickford is second only to Unai Simon (340) for passes completed on 322 and he’s first for final third passes completed on 17 — at least nine clear of any other goalkeeper. His 104 long passes completed, meanwhile, is at least 32 more than any other goalkeeper during this period.
Pickford matures to leave ‘mistake-prone’ reputation behind
One reputation Pickford has never been able to shake off is that he is ‘error-prone’. And yes, during the early part of his career on Merseyside, he was culpable of some high-profile mistakes.
His blunder in the final moments of a 2018 Merseyside derby to hand Liverpool a win at Anfield is arguably the most infamous, but there were unsavoury moments littered throughout his first couple of years at Everton.
Across his first four seasons at the club, for example, no Premier League goalkeeper made more errors leading to goals than Pickford (12).
Of course, that figure should be caveated by the fact that he played the second-most minutes of any goalkeeper during that time. However, it was clear he was a supremely talented goalkeeper who suffered lapses in concentration.
That was at club level, however. At international level, Pickford rarely — if ever — let England down, saving penalties and making monumental stops to help the Three Lions reach a World Cup semi-final, Uefa Nations League semi-final and a Euros final during that period ending in the summer of 2021.
Pickford has had four more full seasons at Everton since then, plus the start of this one. And during that time, he’s made half the number of errors leading to goals, with plenty of goalkeepers with only a fraction of his minutes registering many more. What’s more, his save percentage has gone up to 68.05% in this period, compared to 65.95% prior.
The Washington-born stopper has matured into an assured and consistently effective presence, who hardly ever lets his side down and steps up consistently in the biggest of moments.
From Graeme Souness calling him a ‘bombscare’ to Chris Sutton labelling him a ‘liability’, Pickford has faced plenty of critics during his time at Everton, and he’s silenced every single one. It’s time he got the recognition he deserves.