Sunday 19 October 2014 14:33, UK
Everton defender Leighton Baines says keeping a clean sheet was almost as important as their first home Premier League win of the season after a catalogue of defensive errors left the players scratching their heads.
The England defender provided assists for the first and last goals - scored by Phil Jagielka and Seamus Coleman - in the 3-0 win over Aston Villa at Goodison Park as Everton recorded only their second clean sheet in 11 matches across all competitions.
"We have conceded some strange goals this season and I am not sure, if you look at it, we have given up many more chances than we would usually, but for some reason we have been conceding," Baines said.
"You go away and look at all the stats and analyse things and it is just fine margins in football.
It was nice to get back to normal and keeping a clean sheet is something we will look to replicate in the next few games.
"It was nice to get back to normal and keeping a clean sheet is something we will look to replicate in the next few games."
Romelu Lukaku scored his first goal in a month against Villa and Baines believes that if the Toffees keep providing chances for the Belgium striker then he will deliver with goals.
"When you are bossing games you have to score goals, because the longer teams stay in it the more chance you have got of them nicking the goal and then they can sit in and defend," he added.
"We got our goals at important times against Villa to finish the game off and we were in control.
"Rom was great for us last season and has a really impressive goalscoring record in his time over here so we know goals aren't a problem, we just have to keep giving him opportunities.
"He is a goalscorer and he can score all different types of goals, left foot, right foot, in the air, and he puts fear into defenders and him scoring goals is good for us, because you need your strikers to score.
"I personally didn't feel any lag (after the World Cup), but Rom came back later than myself, Jags (Jagielka) and Ross (Barkley), so he started the season probably having only been with us a week.
"Bear in mind some of the other lads had been back training seven weeks, so in that respect it is only just starting to level out really and we hope we will get him scoring goals because he is vital for us."
