OPINION
Many Everton fans are surely pulling their hair out after Mark Schwarzer claimed that either the Toffees aren’t working on defending set-pieces in training or the players aren’t taking on board the information.
The Sky Sports pundit claimed that Marco Silva’s side clearly needed to go back to basics in training over how to deal with set-pieces, which is a damning assessment, after they have conceded so many goals from those situations in recent weeks.
Schwarzer claimed that as it stood, based on what he had witness, either work wasn’t being done on trying to improve defending from set-pieces or more worryingly that players weren’t taking the lessons on board.
“Absolutely (whether needs to go back to basics at training) as at the moment it doesn’t look like a lot of working is being done on it (set-pieces) and if it is then it doesn’t look like the players are taking on the information,” said Schwarzer on Sky Sports’ Football Centre (Sky Sports News, Friday February 15th, 10:55am).
It’s unclear which of Schwarzer’s training claims will have Toffees supporters pulling their hair out more, as both are worrying and suggest that the good times aren’t coming.
With Everton having shipped 12 goals from set-pieces ahead of facing Watford in their last outing, a match they also lost 1-0, it’s clear that defending set-pieces is a priority area Silva should be looking to fix.
This is because if the Toffees don’t fix this key area, then they will continue to drop points this season as their opponents will attempt to expose it at every opportunity.
So with Schwarzer making the claims he has above, it does suggest that unless there is a change in the scenario behind-the-scenes the Toffees are going to struggle.
With the issue being so noticeable, many Toffees will surely be tearing their out with frustration as more work should be done to make it a non-issue.