BOURNE SUPREMACY ON SET-PIECE SCORING

IT IS enough to make former Everton boss Sam Allardyce choke on his stats manual.

With the contrasting styles of the Blues and Bournemouth last season, it is no surprise that one was top of the set-piece goals scored table (far left), while the other was in the bottom three.

The shock though is that the Cherries scored more from free-kicks – 16 – than any other Premier League club, while Everton got only six.

Bournemouth out-performed Arsenal and Manchester City – Everton only finished ahead of Huddersfield and Brighton.

Blues chief Marco Silva came up with a free-kick routine for a fine goal against Southampton, and he said: “In football, games are finely balanced and one small detail makes the difference between winning and losing.

“We try to find the detail that makes the difference for us.

“When something happened like in the Southampton game last week, and our players can transfer it from the training ground into the match situation, then it is very important for us.”