I’ve never seen him play tbh. Read mixed reports on him. He’s currently Sweden’s No.1 and he’s 6ft 5”, that’s about all I can say. If Pickford has another mare - and he’s made plenty of mistakes already this season - and we’ve only got away with them as we’ve been scoring loads of goals, then Olsen will likely get his chance, once he’s got the shirt then it’ll be his to lose imo, as there’s no way Ancelotti is convinced by Pickford.
agrees and for once agree with @Diego that the deliberate tipping of an airborne defender the same weekend was in many ways worse for the following reasons 1 ) There was definitely intent as he not only looked at the defender but backed into him bent right over ensuring the tip effect would be magnified so the defender was heading head down towards the ground . 2 ) The risk of very serious injury is always there with that sort of fall . 3 ) The refs seem to think it is acceptable as the biggest punishment is just a foul .
Yeah they make me wince those incidents and it’s only by sheer fluke that one of them hasn’t lead to a potentially horrific incident. I also hate the snide ankle rakes from behind as well, as there’s real potential for an Achilles tear with those, yet they’re often just treated with a meh, even in the age of VAR. I saw some dickhead pundit comparing the Pickford challenge with Keane’s on Harland last week ffs. Yeah right oh, Keane admitted going out to hurt him, and a straight leg to the shin is really equivalent with that
I thought the Richarlison challenge was worse but the focus as been on Pickford for two reasons; it went unpunished and it was on VVD. Can't see anyone saying Richarlison should miss more than tha m the standard three games.
The only comparison between these incidents is that serious injury was caused to a player. Keane deliberately lined up Haaland and intended to cause serious injury. Pickford was responsible for an impulsive rash and dangerous challenge but not with pre-meditated intent to cause serious injury. Goalkeepers generally go down to the players feet with their arms in this type of situation, why he launched a two-footed lunge like that is hard to understand
This is the wrong to look at it mate. Just because a player isn't injured as a result doesn't mean that the challenge is any less worse. It's just means that the 'victim' is very lucky. I'm convinced that if VVD rolled around 50 times and screamed in agony, Pickford would have been off. 3 matches isn't sufficient for these sorts of challenges.
I’m not debating that he shouldn’t have been sent off though. Watching it live I said he’s off and that’s a penalty when it went to VAR. The offside saved him, but it was patently the wrong decision. But I’ll admit that I was also under the impression that if the ball is effectively dead, then it had to be deemed as violent conduct for a sending off to be made. That has been since deemed a false premise. I think that it’d have to be something truly heinous for the standard 3 match ban to be deemed insufficient and that challenge wasn’t it imo.
I agree there was no intent there (I think most of us do, apart from those few who think it's ok to send death threats to people because of football), but it was reckless. He wants to block a shot but instead of spreading himself he's just thrown himself at the player in an uncontrolled manner. Imo you have to be brave or stupid to even want to be a goalkeeper, perhaps Pickford is firmly in the latter group as you say. Although not deliberate, it's not what I would call accidental either, because to me that suggests a legitimate challenge that unfortunately goes wrong. I agree with those who say the incident itself is now over, but the controversy it has provoked means he's unlikely to get away with anything similar again. That could be a good thing for him, both he and the coaching staff need to work on him developing a more acceptable technique. Especially if he has previous, which I must say I don't recall offhand. I still think severe criticism of Coote is warranted, especially as he was the one who also missed the Lo Celso stamp on Azpilicueta.
Well said Saint. And I completely agree with the last statement. Serious questions need to be asked over Coote (and also Oliver). Coote in particular has been involved in some atrocious decisions.
I'm prepared to give the on-pitch ref a bit of leeway, because he can't see everything - but the VAR ref has the time and facility to look at such situations properly. Surely this is one of the problems that VAR was meant to resolve? Instead of just spending its time checking to see if someone's eyelashes are offside.
Well, here's the thing. Believe this story if you want or not, but here goes. I work with a train driver from Harrogate who, apart from being an amateur, qualified ref himself, is good friends with Coote. I had a good chat with him yesterday and the one Yorkshireman I know who supports Everton. Firstly, it's a myth that he's a Uniturd fan. Secondly, although this guy himself says there's absolutely no question at all that Pickford SHOULD have been dismissed, the ****-up was as much down to Oliver as Coote. Why? Well Oliver is held in that much esteem that even his colleagues are reluctant to second-guess him on incidents that they believe he clearly saw. Bizarrely, even though it's one of the main things VAR was introduced for, not many junior refs are comfortable even asking Oliver to review an incident. So the PGMOL spent days flip-flopping over their story for one main reason - they're loathe to actually admit that their golden boy saw that incident and didn't see it as serious foul play. So they've thrown Coote under the bus, but my workmate, while sneering at his friend's spinelessness, blames Oliver 95% . As he says, no referee, even at his level, needed VAR to tell them that was a sending-off if they had a good sight of it.
Didn't Halsey also say a time back that they were telling refs to say they didn't see stuff, if they wanted it acted on it retrospectively. So politics and orders from above muddle the whole thing
Mark Halsey’s explosive claim he was “told” to lie while he was a Premier League referee https://www.telegraph.co.uk/footbal...-incident-he-claims-he-was-told-to-lie-about/
pretty much sums it up. You obv see more than me but been a few games on TV where ball goes out of play for a goal kick and he’s running and jumping up and down, rewly pumped up. Shouting at fans etc. guy just seems like he has some sort of anger management issues or just a short fuse or something. Seems to pump himself up too much or something which probably leads to a lot of his simple mistakes that he makes during games.
Agreed that had proper intent. Studs up into the shin. That’s not an accident, you know what’s happening.. what made it worse was ref already gave a free kick for challenge in mane 2 seconds earlier.