A dejected Kieran Dewsbury-Hall during Everton's Premier League defeat to Tottenham Hotspur(Image: (Robbie Jay Barratt - AMA/Getty Images))

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...