England staged a late comeback on Sunday afternoon in the Nations League tie against Croatia as Gareth Southgate’s side took a small measure of revenge following the defeat to them in the World Cup finals out in Russia.
Late goals from Jesse Lingard and Harry Kane gave England a 2-1 win to secure progress from the group, but having fallen behind in the 57th minute to an Andrej Kramaric effort, some sought to criticise Jordan Pickford’s role in the goal.
Whilst the 24-year-old will have wanted to have done better in the moment, he was largely hung out to dry by the defence and on top of that the effort did take a deflection of Eric Dier and former England international Paul Robinson leapt to his defence during Bein Sports coverage of the game.
"If I was Jordan Pickford…"@GKPaulRobinson explains how he'd have handled Croatia's goal. #NationsLeague #ENGCRO pic.twitter.com/HVcKF84sGY
— beIN SPORTS (@beINSPORTS_EN) November 18, 2018
“If I was Jordan Pickford there I’d be having a few words to say to my defenders. Not just the space that he’s got but the time that he’s got. There’s nobody close to him. They need to be closer to him. He got a little bit lucky with his finish but the amount of space and time that he’s got in the box, that’s something that Gareth will look at and be disappointed with.”
Many will believe there’s little, given the circumstances of the goal, that Pickford could’ve done really and when he was otherwise called upon he did his job well and got us underway with his distribution which is an improving part of his game naturally.
I think Robinson’s reading of it is spot on really but moments like that happen in a game and it’s about how sides react, and England reacted in the right way to take the win.