PRACTICE SET-PIECES (PLEASE!)
We can’t take them and we can’t defend them. It’s a problem that could be sorted on the training field but it is a problem which is instead neglected.
According to Leon Osman – an excerpt of his book is doing the rounds on Twitter – Everton do not practice set-pieces. A moment in the game which can lead to a goal and we are choosing to abandon getting it right.
Toffees assistant Graeme Jones apparently said: ‘How many (set-pieces) do you have to defend in a game? Three? So why would we spend two hours standing around to defend three set-pieces when we could work on moving the ball?’
The current thought process is seemingly ‘We’ll score more than you’. It’s not working. If we concede from a set-piece it is an uphill battle needing to score twice to get the three points.
Those two hours need to be spent perfecting the art of defending a set-piece. The front men are moving the ball around just fine (we’ve scored more goals than leaders Arsenal), it’s at the back where things need to improve.