Leeds United’s Marcelo Bielsa: ‘I got it tactically wrong’ against Everton

The Pole was brought off at the break following a first half which saw Everton swarm all over the visitors and dominate midfield, inspired by the impressive Donny van de Beek.

Klich was replaced by Adam Forshaw, while Bielsa also substituted Raphinha, with the Leeds head coach confirming it was for tactical reasons with Tyler Roberts coming on at centre forward and Dan James moving to the right.

Bielsa said: “The position of Klich was an error on my part. The midfielder that was positioned in front of our three centre backs had to defend too much, he (Klich) couldn’t do what he does best, which is to make runs in attack.

“Sincerely, I assigned a task to him that didn’t fit his characteristics. It was difficult for us to maintain and for us to recover the ball. If you recover the ball well, it’s easier to retain it.

“It was a fair result and difficult to defend. In the second half we defended better apart from at the end, but didn’t create anything so I thought the result was fair.”

Everton helped themselves to an early opener from Seamus Coleman and Michael Keane soon doubled the tally, with Leeds paying the price for a poor start, according to James.

He said: “We just didn’t start well and they did. They were on the front foot and put us under pressure.

“We just didn’t deal with it well. The crowd really got behind them and that worked in their favour. The early goal killed us a little bit.”