Jordan Pigford? The abuse would have been horrendous

Jordan Pickford's father, born Lee Pigford, changed his surname by deed poll so that his son would not suffer the abuse he had as a youngster in school.

The story is carried in the Daily Express ahead of tonight's massive World Cup Quarter-Final against Norway, where Erling Haaland is expected to provide his usual threat of scoring past any opposition goalkeeper.

The Manchester City striker has scored in each of his last 14 competitive outings for Norway (27 goals in total during this period), finding the back of the net in all four of his appearances at the 2026 World Cup so far. The last player to score in each of his first five games at the tournament was Colombia's James Rodríguez in 2014, who later became an Everton star all too briefly during the Covid pandemic.

And in another media feature story, BBC Sport asks: Is it time to give record-breaker Pickford the credit he deserves? Tonight, Jordan Pickford will become England's most-capped player at the World Cup when he makes his 18th appearance, breaking the previous record held by Peter Shilton.

That story includes some interesting stats:

In the last two Premier League seasons, Pickford's clean sheet record of 23 is second only to David Raya, the keeper with Premier League champions Arsenal, who has 32.

In his 89 England games, he has conceded 59 goals and kept 44 clean sheets while making, as measured by Opta statistics, only two errors that have led to goals.

» Read the full article at Daily Express

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