What is the solution to Everton's set-piece deficiencies?

When one thinks of the archetypal Everton goal, then the image that immediately springs to mind is of a ball whipped dangerously into the box, and a centre-forward or centre-back meeting it with a towering, powerful header.

The back of the net bursts; the crowd behind roars. And invariably, it would be from a set-piece. Maybe a free-kick, but more likely a corner.

Think Duncan Ferguson against Manchester United in 2005. Or any number of goals scored by Tim Cahill. Or Dominic Calvert-Lewin against Liverpool at the Gwladys Street in 2024, or two years earlier, when his diving header completed that stunning comeback against Crystal Palace. 

But this season, and indeed, since David Moyes returned, Everton’s set-piece threat really seems to have nosedived.

There was no better example than on Monday, as Everton won 10 corners against Man Utd at Hill Dickinson Stadium.

That is their joint-highest total in a single Premier League game this season, along with the 10 they won against Aston Villa in September.

Yet as chaos reigned on Senne Lammens’ goal-line, with Everton’s big men getting embroiled into something resembling a Royal Rumble rather than freeing themselves up to be targets, time and time again, James Garner and Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall simply planted floated deliveries right onto the top of United’s goalkeeper, or if not, onto the head of Harry Maguire or Leny Yoro.

Everton’s approach seemed to have been based on Lammens having issues dealing with crosses. Having watched United a fair bit this season, I have to question just quite what Everton’s coaches had seen to suggest the big Belgian would flap under the pressure.

And this speaks to the big question. Why, in a time when set-pieces have been as important to success in the Premier League as they ever have been, are Everton’s so predictable and lacking in invention?

Under Sean Dyche, Everton were hugely reliant on set-pieces. Dwight McNeil would look to pick out James Tarkowski at the back post, and that would cause mayhem. Teams knew what was coming, but couldn’t stop it.

By the end of Dyche’s tenure, that approach had started to stagnate, but still, Moyes has always had big presences, and he regularly plays with three centre-backs (sometimes even four). Everton, by all rights, should be one of the most dangerous set-piece teams in the division. Instead, they are distinctly average.

Now, a look at the numbers does paint a slightly prettier picture. Of Everton’s 31.49 xG in the league this term, 11.6 has come from set-piece situations. However, set-pieces are not just counted as the initial ball in — data providers also count the second phase. So, for example, Beto’s goal against Wolves in August, when Vitaliy Mykolenko recycled possession after a cleared set-piece and found Jack Grealish, who laid it on a plate for the striker, will count as a set-piece goal.

The issue with Everton is often the initial delivery or execution. Too often, crosses are lacking in pace. The ones that have been drilled in flat have resulted in goals — Michael Keane against Fulham at home, Bernd Leno palming into his own net at Craven Cottage. These spring to mind.

Everton, though, have scored just seven goals from set-piece situations. Wolves (5) rank bottom of the competition in that metric, while it is unsurprisingly Arsenal who lead the way, with 17.

Those are just high-level statistics, but it is clear that there are issues. Moyes will probably point to Everton’s set-piece xG as evidence they can create chances from them, yet to the eye test, Monday’s example against United was simply an amalgamation of a problem well over a year in the making.

Everton do not have a specialist set-piece coach. This time last year, former Liverpool midfielder Charlie Adam was hired to fill the remit, but Adam had no specific background in set-pieces (albeit, he could take a good one). Predictably, it did not work out.

But Everton did not move to replace Adam. Instead, the club seems to have given it up as a bad job. Never mind that two of the top three teams in the league at the moment have specialist set-piece coaches (one of them even has a mural outside the Emirates, for goodness sake!), Moyes decided to take it in-house.

It is this inward thinking that can be especially grating. Everton have gone with the trend this season — they insist on taking long throws, despite the fact they are awful at them. They insist on rugby-like tactics from corners, despite it never really working.

They have three-to-four huge centre-backs on the pitch at any one time, plus two strikers who are over six foot, yet they are either nowhere near the ball or, if they do meet it, tend to send free headers over from close range.

The art of the set-piece should not be lost on Moyes, and in his first spell in charge, they were a brutal weapon in Everton’s armoury. Now, they seem stale.

Moyes needs to be willing to think outside the box, and to seek external assistance. It is nothing to be ashamed of. It is a marginal gain that could be the difference between European qualification or not.

And what of the club? With no sporting director in place, does anybody have the authority to challenge Moyes if he is refuting the suggestion Everton’s coaches perhaps need some assistance in this area? Is this where the committee structure, pushed for by CEO Angus Kinnear, has a major weakness?

It would not be such an issue if Everton were creating chances regularly from open play, but across the last 18 league matches, only once have the Toffees recorded over 1.0 open-play xG.

Right now, it’s a bit like having the worst of both worlds.

It is not all on the coaches. There is only so much Moyes and his staff can work on — it is then on the players to execute, and it is also on the players to have the common sense to instill some variety, rather than try the same thing over and over, even when it is not working.

But all Evertonians want to see more goals, and they do not come much better than the typical, traditional Everton goal that we all know and love. To get there, maybe the powers that be just need to try something new?

 

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