Concerns around Evan Ferguson’s expanding ego are non-existent. Even as his confidence soars. At the Amex last Saturday afternoon, the Brighton and Hove Albion striker joined a small gang of four Irish players to have scored a Premier League hat-trick. But within seconds of the full-time whistle and a 3-1 defeat of Newcastle United, the teenager had forgotten the circumstances surrounding his pick of the bunch.
“The second one, what was the second one?” Ferguson wondered.
“You curled it in from the edge of the box,” the interviewer reminded him.
“Sometimes in the first half I had a bit more time than I thought, so in the second half I thought ‘I’ll get it and turn and try and run at the defence and get a shot off.’ Luckily it went in.”
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Luck has little to do with the rise of Evan Ferguson.
Robbie Keane bagged three hat-tricks for Tottenham Hotspur in victories over Everton and Wolves in 2003, and Burnley in September 2009, but it is the other two names that will catch many people cold in future table quizzes.
Leon Best scored three of Newcastle’s five against West Ham United in 2011. It came a year after Best won the last of seven caps off the bench, in a 2-0 defeat to Brazil at the Emirates Stadium. Almost four years later Jon Walters claimed a “perfect hat-trick” off his right foot, left foot and a header as Stoke City beat Queen’s Park Rangers 3-1.
Ferguson’s three goals were more impressive. Mainly because he is only 18 years old. The first, a poacher’s finish, came when England goalkeeper Nick Pope could not hold Billy Gilmour’s long range shot. The second was pure class, picking up possession 40 yards from Pope’s goal before unleashing a low shot that bounced into the bottom corner. The third was also a strike from outside the box, this time using his weaker left foot to see it glance off Swiss defender Fabian Schär.
“It’s a good day,” he told a string of post-match television interviews. “The first one, it’s a striker’s thing, you have to be ready . . . The third one, yeah it was good to get it in. People are going to say it was a deflection but we are going to count it.”
It was on target, so it counts.
And the match ball? “It is in the dressingroom, somebody has probably punctured it by now.”
Erling Haaland and Son Heung-min also registered Premier League triplets this past weekend.
“Yeah,” said Ferguson, who turns 19 in October, “it is not bad company to be in, them boys.”
Essentially, Nathan Collins has the opposite job to his team-mate. The 22-year-old Brentford centre half is tasked with keeping the best strikers’ quiet week in, week out.
“It’s one of the hardest things to do in football, easily, 100 per cent, especially in the Premier League, one of the best leagues in the world,” said Collins. “He has to take his chances and it’s rare that you get more than three chances in a game as a striker, especially in the Premier League. So to take his three chances, he has done unbelievably well there. All credit to him, he deserves it.
“I know how good he is, and we all know how good he is, so it’s no surprise. It doesn’t change much, but it’s good seeing an Irish player up there scoring a hat-trick and it’s lovely to see.”
With two goals in six caps for Ireland, the challenge for Stephen Kenny’s midfielders and wide players is to create enough opportunity for Ferguson to keep pace with his club return of 10 goals from 24 Premier League appearances.
It did not work against France last March, when Ferguson worked himself to exhaustion in the lone forward’s role, and it did not work in Athens, a 2-1 loss to Greece in June, as Adam Idah and Will Smallbone failed to make life easier for him.
Collins did not blink when asked if Ferguson’s first professional hat-trick caught the Ireland squad by surprise as it has grabbed the attention of the French media and Les Bleus manager Didier Deschamps.
“Not really, looking at it, I wasn’t surprised. I saw the first and I was, like, he can go and score a few more now. I was watching it a bit and they were causing a lot of problems. We know how good Brighton are and you know you’ll get chances at the end of the game. I’m buzzing for him, let’s hope he can do it for us against France.”
