David Moyes is concerned about the costly goals Everton conceded from set pieces against Liverpool and West Ham – but the route to a solution, and deciding on whether one is actually needed, is proving challenging
Everton’s players and coaching staff have explored ways to deal with their new-found fragility from set pieces.
The sickening stoppage time header in the Merseyside derby from Virgil van Dijk, a goal that gave Liverpool the victory in the final seconds of a closely-fought game, prompted discussions at Finch Farm about how it could have been prevented.
Those talks failed to lead to a solution, with Tomas Soucek powering in from a similar corner routine as Everton fell to defeat at West Ham United six days later. The manner of both goals has become a concern for David Moyes, one that has puzzled him given how effective his side had been at defending balls into the box for so much of this season.
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One approach he is not taking is to put the two goals down to personnel. Jarrad Branthwaite and Beto are key parts in Everton’s defence of their box and were missing for both goals. The pair were withdrawn early from the derby with injuries that then ruled them out of the trip to the London Stadium.
Given that Branthwaite had missed so much of the season and that Beto had been in and out of the team before his recent hot streak in front of goal, their absence does not lead to an excuse in the mind of the Scot.
Asked how worried he was about defending set pieces heading into the home game with Manchester City, Moyes said: “I wasn’t that concerned up until the last few weeks because I think we were third best in the Premier League, so the last couple of games I’ve been really disappointed with it.
“It has just not gone as well in a couple of games, and it can happen, but we’ve got to try and eradicate it completely because you can’t be a side that’s going through like that. Up until a week and a half ago, two weeks ago [we were doing OK]. [Then] we lose a goal here against Liverpool from a corner and then we lose the goal at West Ham from a corner as well, so it’s played a big part. It’s OK if we’d been scoring against them or getting it back, then you could say OK then, it’s a bit even, but we didn’t. It’s something which I’m concerned enough about, that’s for sure.”
Those concerns led to talks over how to better deal with set pieces in the build-up to the West Ham game, only for the same issue to prove costly and further dent Everton’s hopes of European qualification.
Moyes explained: “We went into depth to try and stop it. So, after Liverpool, it wasn’t as if we didn’t look into what we could have done better. We did, we had a big discussion about it. But we got done in quite a similar way. So I’m going to have to find out, if I can, what I can alter. But let’s be fair up, until now, you’d have said we’ve not really had a huge problem. So it’s one of those things, do you go out of the way to try and do something about it, or do you trust what’s happened for the best part of 10 months? There’s a bit of both.”
