Paul Merson has branded ex-Mackem Jordan Pickford an ‘accident waiting to happen’ ahead of our trip to Goodison Park on Wednesday – but is backing his Everton to beat us 2-0 and have ‘too much’ for us to handle.
Given his reaction to our relegation and his mocking of NUFC fans during our last trip to Everton last season, it’s fair to say quite a few of us enjoyed his shocking error on Sunday – with his clanger seeing Liverpool win the Merseyside derby 1-0 at the death.
That said, he’s not wrong about Everton. They were very impressive for 95 minutes at Anfield and deserved something from the game. Although the late defeat will have been a huge blow, their performances in recent weeks suggests we’ll have to be right at it to come away with anything from this one.
Here’s what Merson’s said about Pickford and the game itself during his prediction piece for Sky:
“Everton were really good against Liverpool but the error from Jordan Pickford was an accident waiting to happen. It was only a matter of time before because he’s got away with a few errors recently.
“He’s a good goalkeeper and a good shot stopper, but it’s the concentration. There’s got to be something wrong his concentration. Top, top goalkeepers don’t do anything for 90 minutes but then they are called into action and just make a save. That’s what separates the great goalkeepers from the good ones because they can all shot stop. I’m not sure what he was thinking and it’s down to concentration levels. We saw it with England in Spain and we’ve seen on it on another couple of occasions but he’s got away with it. He didn’t get away with it at Liverpool and it’s not because he’s not a good goalkeeper, he just needs to work on his concentration.
“Looking at the team though, I was really impressed with their performance at Anfield and I can see them having too much for Newcastle.”
There’s not a word said about Newcastle in this one, but it’s probably not a bad thing given we’ve just come off the back of a 3-0 hammering at home to West Ham.
Unfortunately, I can’t see us having much joy on Wednesday unless we can quickly get back to our best or see another stinker from Pickford.
Just saw that 94th minute Origi goal for Liverpool! What was Pickford trying to do??? ? #LIVEVE #MerseysideDerbypic.twitter.com/yJVK8nEmob
— Koeman Power (@KoemanPower) December 3, 2018
How do you see the game panning out?
