Jordan Pickford

Craig Liddle, his former coach at Darlington

You always hope people like Jordan can go on and become one of the best but you never really know. All the years of hard work and dedication are paying off. He was 17 at the time I worked with him at Darlington. You are obviously worried about throwing a kid like that in goal. But he was always a really confident lad and he fitted in well straight away.

He made his debut in front of about 7,000 people against Fleetwood. We lost 1-0, but about 10 minutes into the game I remember Jordan piling through a crowd of players to catch a corner. I thought: You’ll do for me. During that game alone, he pulled off three or four top-class saves.

The most impressive thing was the way in which he did not let the odd mistake bother him.