Paul Clement shares behind scenes conversation with Frank Lampard
Paul Clement has shared a behind the scenes Finch Farm view on the major area Frank Lampard urged the Everton coach to work on upon his arrival in January.
The former Chelsea boss recognised the Blues’ lack of killer edge from set-pieces in both boxes as an area of improvement to turn their season around as they battle relegation.
With Burnley capitalising on the Toffees’ defensive frailties from set-pieces, taking an early lead from a corner, Clement still has some work to do with the players.
He told EvertonTV: “The manager has given me some responsibilities regarding set plays, both on the defending and the attacking side.
“Since those years I think set plays have evolved a lot in the way they’re analysed, in the use of data. I think some teams even employ absolute specialist set play coaches with that as their only responsibility, I think mine is a little bit wider than that.
“But we’re working hard on them. We did get some immediate improvement, but that’s probably plateaued off or decreased slightly which I’m going to address with the players in the coming days and games.
“I think it can be a real strength of ours, recognising that we’ve got players who have good delivery. Unfortunately, Andros is now injured but we’ve got Anthony [Gordon], Demarai, Donny [Van de Beek] – players who can all hit a good ball into dangerous areas.
“We’ve got some powerful lads in the box as well, obviously not having Yerry [Mina] has been a bit of a blow. But Ben’s [Godfrey] back now, we’ve seen Mason [Holgate] score, we’ve seen Michael Keane score. Every opportunity that we get from a set play is a chance for us to create a good goalscoring chance with those players.
“We’re working hard on our organisation defensively and we’re also trying to look at creative ways of coming up with opportunities on the other side.”
The basics.
This is schoolboy stuff from Everton. It boils down to concentration and desire to go and attack the ball in both boxes.
They are no different to any other team in the sense of having ten outfield players who can attack and 11 who can defend a dead ball scenario at any given time therefore, it must be their attitude that is letting them down.
Lampard made a great call by handing Clement the responsibility of fixing the problem but many teams have specific set-piece coaches. Some even have one for attacking and another for defending and surely the Toffees would benefit from doing the same – it seems idiotic not to.
Make no mistake Carlo Ancelotti’s previous understudy is a great man to have around Finch Farm but he shouldn’t be hindered with the responsibility of set pieces when he can offer so much more.
In other Everton news, Richard Dunne makes a bizarre Everton-Barcelona comparison.
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