Despite David Moyes’ insistence that Jordan Pickford will remain a Sunderland player next season, following yet another impressive individual display against Arsenal on Tuesday evening, it is almost certain that the young keeper will leave the Stadium of Light this summer, with Goodison Park being his most likely destination.
In an otherwise season of shame for the Black Cat, the 23-year-old has been in majestic form between the sticks and was rightly shortlisted for the PFA Young Player of the Year Award last month.
Undoubtedly, he looks a class act: sound handling, lightning-quick reflexes, a great spring and superb distribution suggest that Pickford has a top career ahead of him, both domestically and internationally. However, the purchasing of goalkeeping promise is a route Everton have been down before quite a few times over the last two decades. And each time it has ended disastrously, with none of the keepers mentioned below realising anything like their full potential.
Paul Gerrard
As Neville Southall’s career began to wind down, Joe Royle went back to his old club, Oldham Athletic, to sign the highly-rated England U21 international Paul Gerrard in 1996. A consistent performer for lower-tier clubs both before and after his Everton career, the Heywood-born stopper endured a difficult time at Goodison. Although he did put in some fine performances for the Blues and there was talk of an international call-up in 1999/2000, he is probably best remembered for inexcusably letting Gary McAllister’s long-range free-kick squirm under his body in the closing stages of a Merseyside derby and for Paolo DiCanio’s act of sportsmanship following an injury to Gerrard in a game versus West Ham in 2000.
Steve Simonsen
Steve Simonsen made the short journey from Tranmere Rovers to Everton in 1998 for a down payment of £1m that could have risen to more than three times that amount had he realised his full potential. Like Gerrard, the stopper from South Shields was an U21 international and came with a huge reputation. However, in his six years at the club he made only thirty-five appearances for the Blues and was released on a free transfer in 2004. A regular for Stoke City until their promotion to the Premier League in 2008, Simonsen was not entrusted with first-choice goalkeeping duties for the Potters in the topflight and left the Britannia Stadium in 2010, when he started his tour of the lower-league circuits both north and south of the border.
Richard Wright
After helping Ipswich Town qualify for the UEFA Cup in their maiden season in the Premier League, Richard Wright moved to Arsenal in 2001 and was seen by many as the long-term successor to David Seaman both at Highbury and on the international front. However, after just one season in North London, Wright sought pastures new and moved to Goodison before the start of the 2002/03 campaign. On his debut, he was at fault for both of Spurs’ goals in a 2-2 draw and his Everton career was perfectly encapsulated in a game at the Stadium of Light just a week later: he got away with a howler when a crossed ball he completely misjudged was incorrectly ruled out for offside before brilliantly saving a penalty which he, himself, had inexplicably given away. Even during spells of decent form in his first season with the club, supporters always felt that a calamitous act wasn’t far away. And so it turned out that way: in the summer of 2003 he damaged his shoulder after falling out of his parents’ loft and then in 2005 tripped over a ‘Not in Use’ sign placed in the goalmouth to keep players off that part of the pitch. Having lost his place firstly to the remarkably consistent Nigel Martyn and then Tim Howard, Wright was released by the club in 2007.
Keepers failing to fulfil their potential is not a problem unique to Everton Football Club. Just look at some of the stoppers who have struggled across the park in recent years: Simon Mignolet got himself a move to Anfield after putting in some fine performances for a poor Premier League side, as did Chris Kirkland, while Scott Carson is highly regarded by fans of Charlton Athletic and Derby County but not by those who follow Liverpool or, indeed, England.
A little further afield, Ben Foster has had a very good topflight career yet failed miserably at Old Trafford and didn’t become the England regular many believed he would. Maybe the aforementioned clubs were simply too big for these keepers or maybe they all lacked the ability and concentration required to pull off important saves after long periods of inactivity.
Either way, Everton and Ronald Koeman need to be certain that Jordan Pickford is the right man for the Blues, as they cannot afford to get this most important of positions wrong again this year.
