Two main Leeds United positives but action needed following Whites display at Everton - YEP 13/2/22

It is less than one month since Leeds United produced probably their best display of the season, one of their best full stop under Marcelo Bielsa even.

By Lee Sobot

Despite an abundance of injuries, the Whites were brilliant in January’s 3-1 victory at West Ham which propelled the Whites nine points clear of the drop zone.

One month later, that nine-point gap is down to six and Leeds still have a little bit of breathing space back to bottom three Burnley, Watford and Norwich City.

But the Whites will be playing a very dangerous game if they repeat showings like Saturday’s hugely disappointing display at Everton and producing a strong long-term reaction is a must.

At their best, Bielsa’s Whites are much better than a team befitting a 15th-placed position and United again showed what they were capable of in large spells of Wednesday night’s clash at Aston Villa.

The main problem at Villa Park was that United were too open at the back, albeit Steven Gerrard’s side benefited from some moments of magic from Philippe Coutinho in the middle.

Leeds, though, also showed their attacking prowess at Villa, serving up 16 attempts on goal and eight shots on target en route to a thrilling 3-3 draw.

But just three days later, Bielsa’s Whites failed to offer a single shot at goal at Everton where the problems were at both ends of the pitch and Rodrigo’s two efforts that rattled the ‘bar should not paper over the cracks.

Quite what went wrong at Goodison Park is hard to fathom in simple terms although Bielsa highlighted how he had made a mistake in playing Mateusz Klich in the holding midfield role.

Klich is better at making runs forward in attack reasoned Bielsa, something he and Leeds benefitted from at Villa as Robin Koch was deployed as a CDM behind a back four of Stuart Dallas, Diego Llorente, Pascal Struijk and Luke Ayling.

But Everton’s presence of two upfront in Dominic Calvert-Lewin and Richarlison meant Leeds switched to a back three of Llorente, Koch and Struijk behind Klich as a deep lying midfielder and at no stage did United threaten to click like they can.

Frank Lampard’s side produced 21 attempts at goal and ten shots on target compared to United’s none. Leeds had seven attempts but only two of any real note, three at a push including the opportunity which Dan James sent wide after cutting inside from the right early in the second half.

By then, Leeds were already 2-0 down and having used all three substitutes, Raphinha withdrawn during the half-time break for tactical reasons as Bielsa instead wanted James to switch from the centre forward role to the right wing with Tyler Roberts going upfront.

The decision to pull off star man Raphinha, and equally the call to leave talented teen striker Joe Gelhardt on the bench both raised eyebrows and neither move worked.

Leeds were very unfortunate to see two brilliant shots from Rodrigo crash back off the bar and an Everton side who had lost their last four league games might have been vulnerable had either of those dipped into the back of the net.

But the Toffees squandered several other excellent opportunities to further add to their tally as part of a pretty dismal day for the Whites who also lost both Stuart Dallas and then later on his replacement Leo Hjelde to injuries.

The very promising Hjelde had earlier produced a brilliant sliding block to stop Richarlison from adding to Everton’s tally whilst Illan Meslier came up with a wonder save to tip a Salomon Rondon volley over the bar in second half stoppage time.

Hjelde is still only 18 and looks to have a massive future, his performance in addition to the efforts of Rodrigo being two positives that could be gleaned.

But the injuries to Dallas and Hjelde were also worries that Leeds could have done without although the biggest worry was the performance itself, a display most uncharacteristic of Bielsa’s Whites.

Leeds are clearly not being helped by injuries to key players and had four key players missing on Saturday in Kalvin Phillips, Patrick Bamford, Liam Cooper and Junior Firpo, in addition to Dallas after he went off.

The sooner they are all back the better and Bielsa’s Whites are usually a completely different proposition to what was seen at Goodison Park.

They will certainly need to be.