Sam Allardyce concedes the odds are stacked against Leeds United in the Premier League relegation battle after Everton's rivals were also dealt a major injury blow in their defeat to West Ham United.
Despite taking the lead through Rodrigo on Sunday afternoon, Leeds were soundly beaten 3-1 by the Hammers to make it advantage Everton in the fight to beat the drop. To make matters worse, Patrick Bamford was forced off after 34 minutes, after picking up a hamstring problem.
At the same time as the Blues take on Bournemouth at Goodison Park next Sunday afternoon, the Whites will finish their campaign against Tottenham Hotspur - also with home advantage - while Leicester City have two chances to steer themselves away from trouble.
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Everton will play the waiting game as the Foxes play catch up against top-four chasing Newcastle United at St James' Park on Monday night. However, as far as former Blues boss Allardyce is concerned, there's nothing that Leeds can do beyond winning their remaining fixture and hoping other results go in their favour.
During a post-match interview, Allardyce told BBC Sport: "We slipped up last weekend when we could have won against Newcastle and, today, we haven't showed a quality that's needed when we had the opportunity to get a result here. Next week has to be much, much better than those two games.
"That's all we can do. All the players need to do is roll their sleeves up, apply themselves in the right way and try to beat Tottenham and hope the other results go in our favour."
On the injury to Bamford - with Leeds also having to take goalscorer Rodrigo off with a heel issue - Allardyce continued: "Probably [he will miss the Tottenham game]. It's a hamstring.
"It's two things [why Leeds are struggling]; confidence and ability. That's the bottom line.
"Of course, ability is expressed much better when you're playing with more confidence. I wouldn't say there's no confidence from the way we started, and the way we were playing, but obviously confidence needs to be really good in the final third to create more chances and also for us to take them."
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