Koeman passing on free-kick tips and tricks to Everton players

Kevin Mirallas got the Everton preseason off to a flying start with a beauty of a free-kick against Barnsley on Saturday.

Speaking to the press today, the Belgian forward said that new manager Ronald Koeman has been teaching the players a thing or two about dead ball situations. On the evidence of what we saw, it’s working quite well so far. Can’t wait to see what he has taught Leighton Baines.

“I work two or three times a week [on my free-kicks]. Now, the new manager is someone who had that as a speciality when he played. He’s had a few words with me about shooting and now I’ve scored and I’m very happy.

“We had a training game in Austria but [Saturday] was really the first game in pre-season. We won 3-0 and that’s good because a lot of the players only came back this week for training but the team played well.

“It was a good game. Barnsley created a few chances but the defence played well, Joel [Robles] played well and it was a good game for pre-season.”

Mirallas has been used in the main striker’s role and sometimes augmenting Romelu Lukaku when he is on the pitch, but on Saturday we saw Gerard Deulofeu in that advanced position, and this is what Mirallas had to say -

“Geri played striker, which was a surprise for everybody, for him as well, but he played very well, showed his pace and scored a nice goal.

“I don’t know if it’s his position for the future but he played very well.

“The next game comes quickly for us now and we need to prepare because it’s not easy to play every three days. But we have a good squad, so there’s no problem with that.”