'Recovery and ice baths' - Liam Cooper lifts lid on Leeds United's preparation for Everton showdown

The Whites take on the Toffees at Elland Road on Wednesday night.
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Liam Cooper says Leeds United were 'straight back to business' on Monday morning ahead of a midweek Premier League clash with Everton at Elland Road.

Marcelo Bielsa's side have faced a swift turnaround following an impressive 3-1 victory over Leicester City at the King Power stadium on Sunday afternoon.

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The Whites returned to Thorp Arch just hours after their arrival back in West Yorkshire as attention quickly focused on the visit of Carlo Ancelotti's men.

Everton make the trip to LS11 on Wednesday night (19:30) in the wake of a disappointing 2-0 defeat to Newcastle United on Saturday.

Leeds, however, stunned the Foxes away from home to return a first three point haul against a top six outfit since promotion in the summer.

United sit 12th in the table ahead of kick-off - 15 points clear of the relegation zone - while Everton are eighth, six points off the Champions League places.

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Bielsa saw his team defeat the Toffees 1-0 in the reverse fixture at Goodison Park with Brazilian winger Raphinha bagging his first goal for the club with a late winner.

Leeds United captain Liam Cooper. Pic: GettyLeeds United captain Liam Cooper. Pic: Getty
Leeds United captain Liam Cooper. Pic: Getty

Leeds' senior squad has been recovering at the club's training ground before undergoing their usual pre-match preparation and captain Cooper is hoping a strong performance on Merseyside can be replicated.

“It was straight back to business on Monday," Cooper said of United's preparations.

"We were in for recovery and ice baths and we will go again on Wednesday against Everton, another tough opponent, but we’re back at Elland Road which is a positive for us.

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“They have quality all over the pitch, a manager with a good philosophy and individual players who can win the game from any given moment.

“It’s a game we need to be 100 per cent in, they’ve got so many players who can hurt you, Dominic Calvert-Lewin, James Rodriguez and strong centre-halves who are good in both boxes.

"It is going to be difficult, but we can take confidence from the result in the away fixture and hopefully with a bit of luck, we can get a positive result again.”

Cooper also admitted that despite having little time to reflect on the victory, a win over Leicester away from home was hugely pleasing for the newly-promoted Whites.

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“We always knew it was going to be a difficult game," he added.

"We’ve beaten a lot of the teams around us this year, but we wanted to go and get a scalp against one of the top teams.

“We hadn’t managed to do that until Sunday, we’d come up short every time, so to go to the King Power and get three points and perform how we did, we will take a lot of positives from it.

“The lads are buzzing as you can imagine, going one behind it would have been easy to lose confidence, but the lads stuck at it, scored some amazing goals and it was a massive result and one we have to push on from now.

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“We’ve had ups and downs so far, but all in all, I think we can be proud of where we are and how far we’ve come.

“I saw a statistic that 11 players from last year’s Championship team finished the game against Leicester, so we are growing as a group every day and each game is a different challenge for us.

“The manager knows and we all know, we need to be at 100 per cent to stay in games in this league and so far, more times than not, we have managed to do that this season.

“That is what we have to fight for each day and we will continue to do that.”