Everton snap analysis from Chris Beesley following the 3-0 Premier League defeat to Tottenham Hotspur at Hill Dickinson Stadium
ECHO Everton reporter Chris Beesley has covered Everton and Liverpool both in the Premier League and abroad since 2005. He cut his teeth in professional sports journalism at the Ellesmere Port Pioneer and then the Welsh edition of the Daily Post, where he also covered Manchester United. Prior to that he worked on the student newspaper Pluto at the University of Central Lancashire, a role in which he first encountered David Moyes. Chris is well-known for his sartorial elegance and the aforementioned Scottish manager once enquired of him at a press conference: "Is that your dad's suit you've got on?" while the tradition continued in 2023 with new Blues boss Sean Dyche complimenting him on his smart appearance.
A dejected Kieran Dewsbury-Hall during Everton's Premier League defeat to Tottenham Hotspur
A dejected Kieran Dewsbury-Hall during Everton's Premier League defeat to Tottenham Hotspur
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David Moyes was blunt about Everton’s set pieces last season when he came back to the club, describing them as “rubbish”, but when it came to keeping them out at the other end this term, the Blues were the last man standing, as it were.
Perhaps employing a former Liverpool player as set-piece coach was always going to be troublesome, like the club’s ill-fated appointment of Rafael Benitez, the man who petulantly described Everton as a “small club” after a goalless Merseyside Derby stalemate at Anfield during Moyes’ first spell in charge, but it would be unfair to pin all their woes on Charlie Adam and the efforts he put in during the second half of 2024/25 alongside a staff containing fellow Scots, Moyes, Alan Irvine and Billy McKinlay.
While the ex-Red has now moved on, the Blues have at least been standing firm when defending them in 2025/26, even without the presence of their colossus at the back, Jarrad Branthwaite, who now faces a prolonged period on the sidelines after undergoing an operation for a hamstring injury this week, having undergone a major setback.
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But just as Everton’s praises were being sung for being the only Premier League team who had not been breached by a set-piece, lightning struck twice in the same place against Tottenham Hotspur, whose captain Micky van de Ven headed in from a brace of corners.
To add insult to injury, the Blues were of course denied an equaliser in between from one of their own, as Jake O’Brien’s header was ruled out after Craig Pawson checked the pitchside monitor and deemed that Iliman Ndiaye and Jack Grealish, standing in offside positions, were impeding opposition goalkeeper Guglielmo Vicario.
The doom-mongers have waxed lyrical about the increase in set-piece goals and long throws – we’re told Spurs take the longest in the division to despatch theirs– and even goal kicks going back to being launched upfield.
The idea that the Premier League is now the home of 21st-century equivalents to Wimbledon’s ‘Crazy Gang’ and Dave Bassett’s Sheffield United seems rather hysterical, though.
Among these 20 teams, though, Everton, even with their added guile, remain one of the biggest, most physically imposing sides, and they need to start using that to their advantage.
This was a bad day at the office, no doubt, but important lessons can be learnt.
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