“Set pieces have always been crucial” – Jordan Pickford | OneFootball

Everton goalkeeper Jordan Pickford believes set pieces have always been crucial in football. The Blues suffered a 3-0 loss to Tottenham Hotspur last weekend, with the match being decided by two corner-kicks.

Spurs defender Micky van de Ven proved a handful to deal with as he rose high to head home two first-half goals for Thomas Frank’s side at Hill Dickinson Stadium. While Jake O’Brien also scored the equaliser for the hosts from a corner-kick, the goal was ruled out after Iliman Ndiaye and Jack Grealish strayed behind the goalkeeper’s line and were offside.

“Set pieces have always been in the game, it’s just people reinventing them again,” Pickford told Sky Sports News.

“Tony Pulis and Big Sam (Sam Allardyce) didn’t have them (set piece coaches), they just coached it themselves.”

Tottenham’s goals on the weekend revitalised the debate about the growing importance of set-pieces in English football.

Several top teams, most notably Arsenal, have relied on set pieces as important situations to take advantage of and this is underlined by the fact that 19% of the goals scored in the league this season have come from corner-kicks.

“A lot of the big matches – cup finals, title deciders – a lot of those games were won by small margins. That’s where set pieces come in.

“We’ve been done by two small margins at the weekend against Spurs.”

2 Posted 31/10/2025 at 13:46:12

What's the context of his statement about Sam and Sean not having set piece coaches? Is he defending the fact we don't have one? Suggesting Moyes should do it himself? Just kind of a weird out of context opener.

It is a case of reinventing the wheel with the current focus in the media on set pieces and long throws. But I'd say for us offensive set pieces are especially important due to our lack of goals. I remember Southgate's England in 2018 relied almost exclusively on set pieces as they lacked creativity at the time. It helped them get all the way to the semi final. We know we have three big center backs who can all score from corners. We need to really make sure we are working on those routines to get some goals.