Gareth Southgate insists Jordan Pickford has "always played well" for England and backed the Everton goalkeeper to continue as the Three Lions' number one.
Pickford's place in Southgate's side has been called into question throughout his time as first choice, though the form of Aaron Ramsdale for Arsenal this season has resulted in increased examination of who deserves to play between the posts.
Everton's form has not helped, with the Toffees struggling in 17th place in the Premier League and having conceded the joint fifth-highest number of goals in the competition this season (47).
Pickford, meanwhile, has conceded 44 of those goals, from 25 appearances. Even if he has been a relatively consistent performer in a disappointingly inconsistent Everton side, only three Premier League goalkeepers have conceded more so far this season, though the 28-year-old has been kept busy, with his 85 saves ranking as the sixth-highest.
His save percentage of 65.9 is the seventh-lowest of goalkeepers to have featured at least 10 times in the top flight, and is way down compared to Ramsdale's impressive 76.3 per cent.
Pickford has, however, slightly overperformed his expected goals on target conceded (xGOT), by 0.6, though Ramsdale again comes out top in this metric, with a goals prevented figure of 3.3.
Yet on the international stage, Pickford is still Southgate's undisputed number one. He made three saves as England came from behind to beat Switzerland 2-1 in a friendly at Wembley on Saturday, including a stunning stop from Fabian Frei when the visitors were 1-0 up.
"He's always played well for us and he has a good focus with us," Southgate told a news conference.
"He has a very good relationship with [goalkeeper coach] Martyn Margetson, who I think does an excellent job with him. So, he knows the structure around him. He knows clearly how we want him to play.
"There is competition for everybody's position and that's what we want. We don't want people just sitting, thinking confidently that there's no competition that doesn't help a team.
"I think the form of the other goalkeepers is important. But he showed again, big saves at important moments."
Pickford has kept 20 clean sheets from 43 England appearances, conceding 32 times and not making a single error that has resulted in a goal.
Indeed, at Euro 2020, he kept five clean sheets – more than any other goalkeeper – while his save percentage (88.9) was also the best in the competition.
"I thought he was very calm with the ball," added Southgate. "That allowed us to relieve the pressure by going back and out of the press.
"Of course, he's got every club in the bag because he can go long, which is a problem for teams as well. So a very good performance from him, especially the saves in the first half."
The Premier League statistics this season do not back up claims of Pickford's reliable distribution, however, with his passing accuracy of 48.9 per cent ranking the third worst of goalkeepers with over 10 Premier League appearances.
That data could be skewed slightly by the fact that only Burnley's Nick Pope has attempted more long passes this season (581 compared to 544), with Everton have preferred a more direct approach under previous manager Rafael Benitez.
Leeds United 4-0 Norwich City (4-0 agg): Whites book Wembley spot in emphatic fashion
Leeds United thumped Norwich City 4-0 in the second leg of their Championship play-off semi-final to seal their place at Wembley.
After a goalless draw in the first leg left it all to play for at Elland Road on Thursday, Leeds turned on the style in front of a raucous home crowd to cruise into the final on May 26.
Ilia Gruev settled the majority of Elland Road's nerves with just seven minutes played as he caught out Angus Gunn with a long-range free-kick, curling into the space vacated by the Norwich goalkeeper's expectation of a cross.
Joel Piroe then doubled the hosts' advantage 13 minutes later, again capitalising on poor goalkeeping to beat Gunn to Wilfried Gnonto's cross and nod home.
The tie was effectively over five minutes from half-time, Georginio Rutter getting on the end of Crysencio Summerville's squared pass to rifle off the underside of the crossbar and in.
And after Gunn spilled Gnonto's low shot in the second half, Rutter cut the ball back for Summerville to poke home and secure Leeds' place in next Sunday's final, where they will meet either Southampton or West Brom.
Data debrief
Leeds may have looked pretty blunt in attack at Carrow Road, but that was far from the case on home soil as they put the Canaries to the sword in brutal fashion while keeping a 21st Championship clean sheet this season, more than any other side.
Daniel Farke's men produced 2.45 xG (expected goals) to Norwich's 0.51, while Summerville made it 20 league goals for the season, more than any other Leeds player.
Busby aiming to reset culture, objectives ahead of World Cup Qualifying campaign
A reset of the culture as well as objectives of the Jamaica Senior Women’s National Team or “Reggae Girlz” is of paramount importance to returning Head coach Hubert Busby Jr.
Busby Jr was rehired last week after previously serving in the role in 2021 and won’t have a lot of time to settle back into the role as his first assignment will be to navigate a pair of international friendlies with global football powerhouses Brazil on June 1 and 4.
The two teams last met at the 2023 FIFA Women’s World Cup where a 0-0 draw secured the Reggae Girlz spot as the first Caribbean nation to ever advance from the group stage at a World Cup.
The squad for these two friendlies can be looked at as a bit of a double-edged sword. On one hand, 18 of the members of the squad were in that history-making World Cup squad but, on the other hand, they haven’t played together since that tournament which was nine months ago.
“I think coming back in with two weeks to go, there is a lot of work to do in a short period of time and the idea that the core of this particular group hasn’t been together in nine months so there’s a lot of work that we’re doing now behind the scenes to get up to speed in terms of watching Brazil and getting the players organized,” he said in an interview with JFFLive on Wednesday.
Busby Jr then went into detail on two of his major objectives in his second stint as Head coach of the Reggae Girlz.
“More importantly, I think, some of the objectives for us is to reset the culture, reset the objectives in terms of what we’re looking to do and understand, I know it’s the most used cliché in sports, but whatever we do, we really have to stick to a process of how we look to get back to the next World Cup in 2027,” explained Busby Jr.
“This is just the first part in utilizing each and every window, making sure that, regardless of the results, we are hitting our targets of what we want to accomplish heading into the World Cup Qualifiers,” he added.
Brazil will be using these friendlies as preparation for the Olympic Games where they won consecutive silver medals at Athens 2004 and Beijing 2008.
These two friendlies will also be the last home international appearances for perhaps the greatest female footballer ever, Marta, who has announced that she will retire after the Paris Games.
“This is going to be a little bit of a send-off match for them. It will also be Marta’s last game in Brazil in front of her home crowd before she retires and there’s a little bit of a revenge factor from what happened at the World Cup so we’ve got to manage all of that,” Busby Jr said.
“We’re going to have these three training sessions and prepare the team for these matches,” he ended.
Scheffler not looking too far ahead with PGA Championship looming
Scottie Scheffler admits he does not allow himself to look too far ahead as he prepares to launch his bid for a first PGA Championship title.
The world number one, who finished tied-second behind champion Brooks Koepka at Oak Hill last year, is the player in form and favourite to go one better 12 months on and claim his third major.
The reigning Masters champion is aiming to become only the third golfer since the turn of the century to win the opening two majors in a calendar year, after Tiger Woods (2002) and Jordan Spieth (2015).
Scheffler arrives at Valhalla having won four of his last five tournaments, and is 161 under par across his 10 PGA Tour events in 2024 - shooting 60s in 30 of the 39 rounds he has played.
One of only two players to finish inside the top 10 in each of the last three majors - along with Cameron Smith - big things are expected of the 28-year-old, but he highlighted the importance of staying grounded.
"I don't really try to look that far ahead," he said. "If I listen to the narratives around myself, if it was two months ago, it would probably look significantly different than it does now.
"I'm sure that wasn't a conversation you were all having two months ago and, all of a sudden, now it's like: 'Oh, he's going to win this many tournaments, or do that and do this'.
"I don't really pay attention to it, I don't really care about it. I'm trying to do the best I can out there each and every week, and as far as anything else, I'm not really too concerned with it.
"I may win a lot of major championships, I may be stuck at two the rest of my career. It doesn't really concern me at the moment. I'm just trying to prepare as best as possible for this week."
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