The Steven Gerrard slip against Chelsea is obviously first up but he is far from alone in making a monumental individal error leading to a goal.
Steven Gerrard v Chelsea
A career-defining slip. Gerrard shapes to pass it across the pitch, loses his footing, falls over and the wasted talent that was Demba Ba picks up the ball and runs in on goal to score and in doing so, loses the title for Liverpool. Who’d have thought he’d end up in the Swiss Super League at Lugano?
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Ederson v Manchester United
He collects the ball on the edge of his box and throws it out at 10 o’clock, ostensibly at a defender to collect. But it goes past him into open space and Scott McTominay collects it and thinks ‘this will make them love me at last’ and strikes it into the open goal. Yeah, that Ederson has got great distribution (to the opposition).
Shay Given v Coventry
Given collects a cross from the right and throws the ball in front of him, forgetting to look behind him, where Dion Dublin is lurking with intent. The striker dashes in front of Given and kicks the ball into the net, scoring an embarrassing goal. It’s probably a hilarious anecdote in Shay’s After Dinner speeches now.
Rio Ferdinand v Portsmouth
The ball is going nowhere when it’s passed to Rio who, brain in neutral, calmly side foots it past the keeper into his own net. You can tell he wants to blame someone but has to completely own it as the shaven-headed one opens his mouth and yells, 110% percent his fault, Gary.
Romaine Sawyers v Leeds
The West Brom man scores an own goal in a 5-0 thrashing. He takes the ball from a midfielder with his back to goal, thinks a back pass will take the pressure off, turns towards the goal and thinks it is going to the keeper. Only the keeper is on the far right of his box, not where he has kicked it, and the ball rolls into the net a little pathetically. Leeds don’t even celebrate their good fortune and to be fair, Romaine looks totally sick at his mistake.
Jorginho v Arsenal
A classic error: don’t play it out from the back if you can’t. In an attempt to ingratiate himself with his future employers, Jorginho takes the ball centrally as a defender, means to pass it back to the goalie but puts it about 10 feet to the left of him. He dives and in a scramble stops the ball, but pushes it into an Arsenal player’s path who centres it for yesterday’s hero, Emile Smith-Rowe, to score. That’ll be £200,000 and a transfer to Arsenal, please.
Wes Morgan v Stoke
Big Wes collects the ball from the opposition keeper’s kick and makes a total hash of passing the ball back to his own goalie, underhitting it into the path of an advancing Jonny Walters who slots it home. It’s monumentally clumsy. You’ll never win anything defending like that.
Vigil Van Dijk v Arsenal
The Premier League’s website described this brain fart best: ‘A long ball over the top by Gabriel was allowed to bounce by Virgil van Dijk, who held off Gabriel Martinelli and let the ball travel towards goal. Goalkeeper Alisson came out to clear but collided with Van Dijk and missed the ball, allowing Martinelli a simple finish into an empty net.’ And it looked even worse than that. The Rolls Royce broke down.
Jordan Pickford v Liverpool
Divock Origi was largely a mess of arms and legs. But if you wanted an important goal scored, he was your man. In the final seconds, the ball falls out of the sky into what should have been Jordan’s stumpy arms. Divock is just shambling around when the ball bounces off the bar, out of Pickford’s grasp and Origi bundles it into the net, unable to believe he’s being paid a fortune to do this and to be acclaimed as a hero. Klopp goes insane, also unable to believe that Origi is being paid a fortune to do this and to be acclaimed as a hero.
Tim Flowers v Blackburn Rovers
In which Stan takes an innocuous shot which rolls along the turf until it gets in front of Tim Flowers in goal who is set to collect it, at which point it hits a divot, kicks up and over the goalie’s hands into the net, much to Flowers’ chagrin. Stan is so embarrassed he doesn’t bother celebrating his good fortune. Wouldn’t happen now on today’s carpets.