Everton will have a chance to go fifth momentarily if they manage to beat Leeds United.
Everton travel over to Elland Road to face Marcelo Bielsa’s high flying Leeds United as the Toffees look to forget about their embarrassing 2-0 defeat to Steve Bruce’s Newcastle United. This will be Everton’s second time facing Leeds, and Carlo Ancelotti’s side will be looking to improve on their 1-0 loss at Goodison Park back in November.
Everton and Leeds had an attacking battle in the first encounter, with Raphinha scoring the winning goal against the Toffees. Illan Meslier stood out as Leeds’ best player and made the game very difficult for Everton’s attackers.
The Toffees have been a much more defensive team ever since this game, with the back four consisting of four centre-backs, with Ben Godfrey and Mason Holgate occupying the full-back positions.
Ancelotti made his team play a low block with effective counter-attacking, and it worked for Everton, giving them results against Chelsea, Leicester and Arsenal. However, because of the return of left-back Lucas Digne, it looks like Ben Godfrey has been moved out of the left-back position to accommodate the returning Frenchman.
We have seen Ancelotti use both Godfrey and Digne, for example against Wolves, with Digne playing as a left midfielder which gave the Frenchman more attacking freedom to bomb forward and play crosses. I’m not sure if Ancelotti likes that system, so I think he won’t use it against Leeds, but it could be effective.