England’s goalkeeping situation has always been either feast or famine.
Selecting David Seaman was a no-brainer for years, with Tim Flowers and Nigel Martyn only ever fighting it out for the bench spots and the odd friendly.
Then came the wilderness years: David James won 53 caps but over 13 years was rarely a solid No 1; Paul Robinson was a reliable choice for three years but never recovered from the disastrous Euro 2008 qualifying campaign; and Rob Green, Ben Foster, Scott Carson and Chris Kirkland all came and went quickly in a flurry of howlers and blunders.
Joe Hart provided feast again under Fabio Capello and later Roy Hodgson, before Jordan Pickford was the first ‘keeper Gareth Southgate blooded in November 2017 and has remained his favourite ever since.
But Everton’s dire form, Pickford’s own dip in performances and a lack of options means Southgate – perhaps for the first time in his England career – finds himself without an obvious solution in between the sticks.
Before the World Cup in Qatar, Southgate probably barely mentioned goalkeeping in team meetings. Pickford’s Everton may only have avoided relegation by two points, but he was comfortably the best English goalkeeper in the Premier League.
That season his differential between goals conceded compared to expected goals conceded (PSxG+/- for short) was 3.0, the fifth best of the regular goalkeepers in the Premier League, and by far the best of any team in the relegation battle, according to Opta figures.
But this year, those numbers are nowhere near as good. Pickford is 14th in the PSxG+/- league table, and on Monday conceded six against Chelsea, including one he gifted to Cole Palmer with a wayward pass.
“Pickford, England’s number one? We must be struggling for goalkeepers,” former Everton scout Bryan King told Goodison News last week.
“I am not sure what type of training they are doing with goalkeepers these days, but it certainly isn’t training them to catch the ball.
“Everything that went near Pickford he pushed it away, and for someone who is meant to be brilliant with his feet, he certainly didn’t execute the pass that he wanted when he played Cole Palmer in.
“That was extremely poor, especially for a man who is supposed to be the number one goalkeeper for his country.”
That will concern Southgate too. No goalkeeper in the Premier League hits more long passes than Pickford: 57 per cent of his distribution is via long ball – defined as a pass over 40 yards. That’s more than Wes Foderingham at Sheffield United or Sam Johnstone at Crystal Palace, and he might as well be playing a different position from Alisson Becker (14.9 per cent) at Liverpool or Tottenham’s Gugliemo Vicario (16.1 per cent).
That of course stems from managerial and tactical style as much as anything else, and Pickford’s long-pass completion rate is the third-best in the league, but given Southgate prefers to play possession football at the back, he may look to a goalkeeper more used to it.
Enter Nick Pope.
Before seriously injuring his shoulder in December, Pope was up with Becker and Vicario in terms of short passing at the back. Eddie Howe’s style is not dissimilar from Southgate’s – it is notable how easily Anthony Gordon has slotted into the England squad after finally breaking in – and while goalkeeper is a very different position, the same logic applies.
And Pope too offers a statistically better shot-stopping approach: his PSxG+/- is the highest of any English goalkeeper this season. He also holds the record for most minutes before conceding his first goal as an England goalkeeper, having gone 458 minutes from his debut with a clean sheet until Jakub Moder scored for Poland.
The main drawback is of course that Pope has been out for five months, but signs are that he is trending towards a return at the end of April, and we know Southgate is not afraid to show faith in those who have previously served him well.
He may have to as well, with Aaron Ramsdale, the natural No 2 to Pickford, having lost his place at Arsenal. Southgate did hint last month that he might take him anyway, but also that he thought he could get back into Mikel Arteta’s side. Having played just twice in 2024, that is yet to materialise.
“We still believe he can force his way back into the team there,” Southgate said back in March.
“He’s just got to keep pushing every day and training well every day. I think if we’ve got three goalkeepers and one isn’t regular, it’s not perfect, but at this moment in time we are prepared to take that chance.”
At this rate – with Sam Johnstone the latest ruled out of Euro 2024 because of injury last month – just having three goalkeepers might be a challenge.
In fact Southgate is so short of depth in the gloves department that reports last week suggested he was even considering calling up Carl Rushworth, the 22-year-old Brighton loanee who has played every game for Swansea in the Championship this season.
The truth is Rushworth would not be such a shock arrival into the squad. We are in famine not feast for England goalkeepers, and it does not bode well for the summer approaching.
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