Charlie Adam names 'biggest challenge' as he reflects on Everton set-piece struggles

Charlie Adam names 'biggest challenge' as he reflects on Everton set-piece struggles

The former Liverpool, Blackpool and Scotland player has been looking back on his role as set-piece coach at Everton last season

Former Everton set-piece coach Charlie Adam looks on during the Premier League match between Wolves and Everton at Molineux. Photo by Malcolm Couzens/Getty Images

Charlie Adam’s “biggest challenge” while Everton set-piece coach was dealing with the absence of Dwight McNeil.The former Scotland international was brought in by David Moyes as he re-shaped the coaching team following his return to the Blues in January.

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Adam's stint at the club has since come to an end but the 39-year-old, whose personal relationship with Moyes had grown through chats over coffee close to their homes, has since had offers of taking on the same role elsewhere, though he is also eager to return to management.

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Adam arrived at Everton with the club facing a relegation fight because, for all the resilience of the defence left by Sean Dyche, they were struggling to create chances.

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Given the size and strength of their options from attacking set-pieces, the hope was that corners and free-kicks could provide a solution - as they had done at times under Dyche, with the likes of James Tarkowski and Jarrad Branthwaite having previously chipped in with important goals.

Tarkowski and another towering defender, Jake O’Brien, did go on to provide pivotal strikes in the second half of the season but they did not come from set-pieces, with Adam leaving Everton with only Michael Keane’s header in the win at Fulham to show from his work on attacking set-plays.

A major factor in that, he believes, was McNeil being unavailable. The club’s dead-ball specialist suffered a knee injury in the home draw with Fulham in October that, after he initially tried to play through, ruled him out between early December and April.

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On McNeil’s absence, Adam told the Scotsman : “A lot of clubs now have somebody within the group who are specialists within set-plays. They've got people that can deliver the ball where you want them to deliver it. So that's where we found the biggest challenge.”

Everton persevered with Jack Harrison, James Garner and, at times, Ashley Young, but the lack of dead-ball quality became a theme - one that frustrated Moyes to the point where he would openly admit to being disappointed with the deliveries into the opposition box .

When Keane’s header at Craven Cottage in May did come, it was from an in-swinging corner from the fit-again McNeil.

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For Adam, the experience was a positive one, however. He said: “It was a real eye opener for me in terms of how top-level management is. How he (Moyes) managed and won games tactically. It was a great learning curve for me to go in and do something I have never done before in terms of being a set-play coach.”

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The opportunity had come about after their relationship developed while talking about football over coffee, with the two living close to each other. Adam was, therefore, “delighted” when Moyes got the Blues job and he got the offer to join his backroom team just weeks after being dismissed as manager of League Two Fleetwood Town.

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Was he worried about his stint as a player for Liverpool getting in the way? He reflected: “I was thinking, is it going to happen, obviously because of the Liverpool thing? It was obviously a situation that you have to think about.”

Since leaving Everton, Adam has looked at managerial vacancies and applied for the top job at Dundee, the club he followed as a boy and where he ended his playing career, but was unsuccessful.

He has had offers from abroad to take on the set-piece coaching role, though. He said: “I've had a couple of Zooms with some big clubs abroad that were out of the blue. Because I'm supposedly a set-piece coach now, it's not a big thing in certain countries abroad… A club reached out to me last week. I had a Zoom with them. I'm open to that. Ultimately, I'd like to manage or coach again one day.”

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