Yesterday, a video emerged of Jordan Pickford getting into a scrap in a Sunderland bar, following a few choice words with some fans. Pickford was out with his fiancee, most likely having been at home to watch his local team play in the Checkatrade Trophy Final.
The first of the videos shows Jordan Pickford taking pictures with fans while a few, presumably Newcastle fans judging by the accent, threw insults at him. He reacted by flicking his middle finger up at the camera. The other two videos show Pickford embroiled in a scrap outside the bar before his friends pull him away. The reports coming from the incident suggest the fans throwing abuse at Pickford repeatedly called his fiancee a “fat c**t”.
If you want to see it, here’s it is:
This isn’t the first time the England goalkeeper has got into a heated battle with Newcastle United fans. When his team, Everton, visited St James’ Park just three weeks back, he tried his best to wind up the Newcastle fans but ultimately ended up shooting himself in the foot.
Jordan Pickford is still very immature
By his own admission, he let his emotions get the best of him and he ended up making a couple of very costly mistakes. Everton would end up blowing a 2-0 lead to lose 3-2 at St James’ Park, much to the disdain of Jordan Pickford.
Even Everton manager Marco Silva reckons the Mackem born lad needs to work on his “emotional balance”:
“He has the confidence of our goalkeeping coach which is important also and he will keep working with him to give him all the conditions to keep growing as a goalkeeper – to keep growing his emotional balance during matches and to get better every day,” said Silva.
From the fighting incident yesterday, one thing is for certain, Pickford was defending the honour of his future wife, the same way pretty much any man would have. The lads who were throwing abuse at them are despicable in my honest opinion.
As you may be aware from previous pieces, I am a Newcastle United fan. Although I’m not against a bit of light-hearted banter with a rival fan/player, bringing his partner into it is majorly crossing the line. These idiots were trying to get a reaction from Pickford, he managed to hold out for a while, so they upped the ante. Eventually, Pickford gave them all exactly what they wanted.
While I’m a fan of footballers staying true to who they are, Pickford needs to realise who he has become. He is no longer a young lad running around the streets of Sunderland, he is an England international footballer. He is a role model to young kids the world over – you just cannot react like that.
No matter what he does and no matter where he goes, he’s always going to have eyes on him because of who he is. As a result, he needs to learn to ignore stuff like this because it’s just going to repeatedly come back to bite him. Everton are investigating the incident from Sunday, and it won’t be a surprise to anybody if they punish him for it. Probably a fine equal to one weeks wages or something similar.
Jordan, I applaud you for defending the honour of your fiancee, but now it’s time to grow up a little bit. Learn to laugh it off, or leave the situation – either way, reactions like that help nobody other than the idiots who wanted the reaction. They got their five minutes of fame because of it.
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