We came into this game with a bit of optimism after the positive performance at Villa, but that was soon swept away by a dominant Everton side who deservedly claimed all three points and left us in a vulnerable position at the wrong end of the table.

The best we can say is that we were unlucky to have this fixture cropping up at this particular time, rather than a few weeks ago in the dying days of the Rafa Benitez era at Goodison Park. The poisonous atmosphere had gone, and the home fans were well up for this game, making a tremendous noise as their team came out onto the pitch.

Everton had swept Brentford aside in the FA Cup tie that was fat Frank’s first game in charge, and although their performance at Newcastle in midweek was heavily criticised, they had taken the lead in that game and perhaps were undone by the Geordies’ own revival and team strengthening. In this game Everton essentially out-Bielsaed Leeds, in a style that we always find difficult to play against.

Bielsa opted to keep the same starting eleven from the Villa game, but in a different formation, with his usual tactic of playing a third central defender when the opposition have two up front. And while our injury crisis rumbles on, Everton had Calvert-Lewin back to fitness to challenge Ayling for the honour of having the best man-bun on the pitch.

Right from the start Everton were feeding off the energy of the crowd, and in the very first minute of the game Calvert-Lewin turned away from Struijk and spotted Gordon racing through our defence unchallenged. Thankfully Ayling got back to make a last-ditch tackle to take the pace off the shot and Meslier was able to collect.

That set the tone for the rest of the game, with Everton working hard to deny us space and moving the ball quickly. Lampard has now come up against Bielsa in charge of three different clubs, and although our man got the best of the first three encounters, fat Frank has had time to work out what tactics he needs to adopt. And his side needed only ten minutes to take the lead.

Coleman played a one-two with Iwobi on the edge of the area and continued his run, so that when Gordon crossed and the ball looped up after Llorente’s challenge on Calvert-Lewin, he was on hand to dive in at the far post to head home from close range. On the TV replay I saw him pulling Klich’s arm in his efforts to get to the ball first, but evidently not enough to attract the attention of the VAR man.

By then Dallas had already limped off the pitch after getting injured in a desperate challenge when Everton broke through, and had to be replaced by Hjelde. The young man produced another impressive performance and certainly couldn’t be blamed for anything that followed, but could we have had the naturally left-footed Struijk at left back instead?

After the goal the pace of the game dropped a little and we did manage to enjoy a little bit of possession and show signs of getting back into the match. But too many moves broke down as passes went astray or our players dallied on the ball for too long and lost possession. Our one decent chance in this spell came when a dipping shot from Rodrigo smacked off the bar with Pickford off his line.

But Everton went further in front on 23 minutes from a corner we were unlucky to concede as the ball ricocheted back onto Harrison before crossing the line. Once again our vulnerability at set pieces was exploited as the corner was swung right across to the far post, where Kean ran in and timed his jump perfectly to get to the ball above Struijk and Koch, to score with a powerful header.

And the chances kept coming for Everton, with Llorente taking his turn to make a goal-saving challenge when the ball fell to Richarlison in a good position after coming back off Struijk’s heel. And Meslier had to turn the ball round the post after Calvert-Lewin got through to shoot from a narrow angle.

At the other end Ayling tried an overhead kick when there wasn’t enough space to do so, and caught an Everton player in the face in the process. Their players over-reacted to what was clearly an accident, but it calmed down before any serious row broke out, and the ref decided that a telling off was sufficient rather than issuing any cards.

And we went close just before the break when Raphinha cut in from the right and his neat pass found Rodrigo, who again had the space to shoot from outside the box. This was a curler but ended up with the same result, smacking back off the bar with Pickford looking well beaten. At half time you could say that everything would have been different if both Rodrigo’s shots had flown in, but Everton had also had several good chances in addition to their two goals.

During the interval Bielsa opted to make his remaining two changes. One was to replace Klich with Forshaw, and he admitted afterwards that Forshaw would have been the better option in the deep midfield role to give the back five some protection. But it was his other change that has caused all the consternation on social media when he replaced Raphinha with Tyler Roberts! One comment was “there must be a universe somewhere where this makes sense”.

There was more a case for hooking Raphinha in the Villa game, as this time he looked like getting back to his normal self, doing as much as anyone when we came forward. If nothing else, he gives his colleagues more space as the opposition a drawn towards him, knowing he’s our best player. The change at least allowed James to revert to his natural position on the wing, but why wasn’t Gelhardt brought on instead?

You wouldn’t expect Roberts to provide the spark to get us back into the game from two down, and all too predictably, he didn’t. We did have a Dan James shot across the face of goal and yet another shot from distance from Rodrigo (this time well over the bar) but that was about it for the second half. Harrison and James tried swapping wings, but it didn’t make any difference.

As the frustration grew among the Leeds following there was yet another episode of missile throwing towards opposition players, with two bottles thrown from towards the back of the lower tier of our section. This was sparked by a throw-in decision that we thought should have gone our way, but really…

By now Dele Alli had come on for Everton, and we could be thankful that he tried to be too clever and curled the ball well wide with the outside of his right foot, when a simple left foot shot would have served him much better. While the margin was still only two goals there was always a slight chance that we could snatch a result, but we were finally killed off by a third goal in the 78th minute.

When the ball came to Richarlison outside the area I thought were sufficient bodies in front of him to block any immediate danger, but the ball seemed to go through them and into the corner of the net in slow motion. I now know from watching Match of the Day that it had taken a deflection off the boot of Gordon, which must have wrong-footed Meslier.

And it could have got even worse in the final few minutes, as Dele Alli combined with another substitute who has endured plenty of criticism this season. Alli curled an excellent cross into the path of Rondon from the right flank, but Meslier reacted superbly to turn his shot over the bar. That spared us from further embarrassment, and shortly afterwards the referee put us out of our misery with the final whistle.

So where do we go from here? On Saturday evening social media was buzzing with more criticism of Bielsa than I can ever remember, questioning the inflexibility of his tactics mid-game and his refusal to strengthen the squad in the transfer window just gone. In particular for turning down the chance to sign van de Beek, who was influential in this Everton performance.

We are still above the Toffees in the table, but they would only need a point from their game in hand to overtake us, so we can be thankful that there were no wins for any of other endangered sides who played yesterday. So we remain six points above the dreaded bottom three, but we need to get back on track with a win against you know who next Sunday.

We might have a few injured players back by then, though we don’t yet know how soon Dallas will recover from the knock he took yesterday. But at least Man U are in a difficult spell of their own, and by all accounts their performance yesterday had none of the energy and commitment that Everton produced against us. So here’s hoping that next time it will be us running rings round the opposition instead. MOT!

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