How Jordan Pickford reacted to chants from Liverpool fans at Anfield in Merseyside derby | OneFootball

When it comes to the Merseyside derby, Jordan Pickford has previously been the villain of the piece for Liverpool fans.

The Everton goalkeeper infamously inflicted an ACL injury on Virgil van Dijk at Goodison Park almost five years ago, while he also escaped unpunished for a wild lunge on Darwin Nunez towards the end of the local rivals’ Anfield meeting last season and unashamedly indugled in time-wasting in an eventual 2-0 defeat for the Toffees in 2022.

While those moments enraged Kopites, they’d have had rather fonder memories of his botched clearance in stoppage time of the December 2018 derby, when Divock Origi was on hand to punish the error from the England international and spark scenes of delirium from the home support.

Pickford sees funny side of Liverpool fans’ chants

Pickford was back at Anfield on Saturday for the Toffees’ latest attempt to get one over on their local rivals, but there was nothing he could do about the two goals which secured a fifth successive Premier League victory for Liverpool to begin the season.

During the weekend’s match, some Reds supporters taunted the 31-year-old by chanting ‘You couldn’t touch the bar with Jordan Pickford’s arms’ and also bellowed Origi’s name in references to the Belgian’s last-gasp winner seven years ago.

However, as noted by Paul Gorst for the Liverpool Echo, Everton’s number 1 took the heckles in good spirits and clapped the Kop as he proceeded towards the goalmouth at that end just before the start of the second half.

(Photo by Carl Recine/Getty Images)

Liverpool had the last laugh on Pickford!

It’ll take a lot more than a level-headed reaction to light-hearted chants for many Liverpool fans to forgive Pickford over what he did to Van Dijk (and, to a lesser extent, Nunez) in previous derbies, but we’ll credit the goalkeeper for taking the slagging on the chin over the weekend.

Also, to give him his due, he made a couple of important interventions for his team on Saturday, particuarly in rushing out to hack the ball clear when Mo Salah was played through on goal and looked primed to score had he won the 50-50.

The England international has kept six clean sheets in his 19 Merseyside derbies, but only one of those has come in his last six outings against the Reds, who’ve now won five consecutive Anfield meetings against Everton for the first time since 1937.

While Pickford saw the funny side of the taunts from Liverpool supporters at the weekend, he won’t have been too amused at ending up on the losing side in the derby yet again!