Jordan Pickford rolling a ball out and Micky van de Ven celebrating in a round overlayGeorge Overhill
Tottenham have been credited for inflicting a first home defeat on Everton at the weekend because they had identified star man Jordan Pickford as a weakness.
A pair of Micky van de Ven headers did most of the damage as Spurs won 3-0 at the Hill Dickinson Stadium on Sunday.
Jake O’Brien also had what looked like an Everton equaliser ruled out in similar circumstances as Craig Pawson adjudged Iliman Ndiaye and Jack Grealish to be impeding Guglielmo Vicario while in offside positions.
A decent overall showing from the home side suffered for a lack of finishing in attack and difficulty defending set pieces at the back and Michael Ball lays the blame at Pickford‘s door.
David Moyes looking unimpressed
Credit: Imago
Michael Ball points finger at Jordan Pickford for Everton loss
Suggesting that Thomas Frank and his staff had pin-pointed the England number one as someone they could get at in their air from set pieces, Ball was disappointed by Pickford’s performance.
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The former Everton full-back wrote in his Liverpool Echo column that despite the Toffees’ general prowess in defending such situations the apparent weakness in goal meant it was still an area for opponents to target.
Van de Ven headed home in each half and Ball claimed the visitors knew they could prosper in that regard.
“I think Jordan Pickford really struggles in those situations, as, while he’s a shot stopper, he hasn’t got the biggest presence,” he said.
“Yes, everyone needs to do their job but as we’ve seen this season, a lot has been highlighted on set-pieces and throw-ins.
“Teams are realising that if you get it in the box, you cause problems. We’ve been great at defending set pieces all season, but Spurs had done their homework and knew that Jordan wouldn’t command his box.”
Of the Spurs second he added: “We were then naive because we got caught again and once more it was up to Jordan to come out and command it as he can use his arms.”
Jordan Pickford not the problem after tough Toffees loss
Yes, Spurs benefited twice in the air at the weekend but it would be harsh to pin the blame on Pickford.
He can always look for areas to improve but the 31-year-old is clearly a net-positive for David Moyes and has more than done his bit for Everton in recent years.
The England star can hardly be blamed for Vitaliy Mykolenko and Grealish both losing headers for the first goal, and might count himself unfortunate not to have got a charitable officiating decision for the second after Van de Ven nudged him off balance.
On balance it was probably just an unlucky outing for an Everton side that didn’t perform that badly against Tottenham on the day.
