Everton’s players have been shown last season’s video nasty in order to improve the club’s set-piece record.
A total of 14 goals were conceded during Roberto Martinez’s final campaign but the Blues have only shipped a solitary goal in their opening 10 games under Ronald Koeman.
And ahead of Saturday’s trip to Chelsea,the Everton manager attributes the marked improvement to the analysis of Everton’s past mistakes in the scenarios.
He said: “It was a big issue to change this, to have better defending and better offensively set plays because they conceded 14 goals out of set plays last season – that’s crazy.
“We started to show clips of last season and we put a different organisation in. I think we’re giving more attention to set plays, at least twice a week.
“This morning we had a meeting about Chelsea but only about set plays. I think you need to get the players really more involved.
“Of course it’s finally my responsibility but the players need to be involved in set plays.
“They need to talk between themsleves about set plays: what’s the best way to defend against Chelsea [or] what’s the best way to have good defending against West Ham’
“Because football games, most of the time, you can win and lose out on a corner or a free kick.
“You need to prepare yourself and I’m really happy now that we are defending well but we need to continue and that’s important.
“But that’s also [about] confidence. Maybe if you conceded a lot of goals it’s also maybe a little bit afraid of getting corner kicks against you and maybe nervious but we talk ot the players.
“The players are involved in the defending set plays and it’s good to hear that we’re doing better than last season – but that was not so difficult.”