Garth Crooks goes all in on Nick Pope and Jordan Pickford argument

Garth Crooks has been talking about what happened in the Premier League this past weekend.

Indeed, the BBC Sport pundit extending his comments over these past five and a half months.

Garth Crooks going all in on the Nick Pope and Jordan Pickford argument.

The BBC Sport man seeing only one absolutely clear winner, declaring the Newcastle United keeper has been ‘head and shoulders’ above the Everton goalkeeper.

Everton have conceded almost three times as many goals (28) in the Premier League as Newcastle (11) this season.

Whilst clearly Everton have obviously suffered from having a far lower quality team and manager (until Frank Lampard belatedly sacked yesterday) than Newcastle United, that doesn’t excuse / explain everything where the goalkeepers are concerned.

Nick Pope has been absolutely top class, the best in the Premier League by a distance. Ramsdale and Arsenal have conceded the next lowest (16) but have played a game less than NUFC, whilst next lowest are Ederson and Man City, who have leaked almost twice as many (20) in the Premier League as Nick Pope.

Garth Crooks quite rightly talks about the ‘extraordinary’ number of clean sheets Nick Pope has racked up, in all competitions it is 15 clean sheets in 23 Newcastle United matches. I’m not sure ‘extraordinary’ comes close as a fitting description…

Especially when you then look at the fact that (including added time) in the past 15 hours of football that the Newcastle keeper has played, Nick Pope hasn’t conceded a single goal, nine clean sheets in a row!

The defence in front of him have been similarly excellent but Nick Pope has been brilliant when called upon, he had only one save to make at Crystal Palace BUT it was a world class save.

Also, his all round game has been equally good, his positioning, his taking of crosses, his sweeping behind the defence, the list goes on.

This isn’t a new thing either.

Playing for unfashionable Burnley, clearly he didn’t get the credit he deserved.

Last season, despite Burnley’s relegation, they conceded the 10th lowest number of goals. Pope and Burnley conceding 53, whilst Pickford and Everton ended up 16th but conceding a massive 13 goals more in the Premier League.

For me, there is no doubt who has been the best value for money signing this season.

In an era where Premier League goalkeepers are costing the likes of £65m (Alisson) and £72m (Kepa), Eddie Howe picks up an England goalkeeper in his prime (30 years old) for £10m, who proves to be the best goalkeeper in the Premier League this season by some distance, so far.

For those who claim ridiculous amounts of ‘oil money’ are the sole reasons for Newcastle United’s success, that any manager could have done the same as Eddie Howe…just give them this two word message…

Nick Pope.

Garth Crooks talking to BBC Sport – 23 January 2023:

“Newcastle United have had an amazing run these past few weeks and really should have won at Crystal Palace when you consider the chances they had.

“One of the reasons Eddie Howe’s new-look team didn’t snatch all three points was because of the performance of the Eagles’ central defender Chris Richards.

“For a fee of £10m from Bayern Munich, the United States international looks a good buy on his past two showings.

“He was equally impressive against Manchester United in midweek and has given Patrick Vieira’s team a real boost in defence.

“Newcastle goalkeeper Nick Pope deserves a mention at this point.

“The England international’s performances have been head and shoulders above those of Everton’s Jordan Pickford.

“His one and only save against Crystal Palace and his extraordinary run of clean sheets proves it.”