EVERTON: A GOOD TEST FOR BOTH - UWE

EVERTON: A GOOD TEST FOR BOTH - UWE

Head coach previews the Elland Road friendly with Everton...

Uwe Rosler expects his side to face "stiff opposition" when Everton visit Elland Road on Saturday (3pm), but believes it will equally be a "good test" for the Toffees.

United’s pre-season schedule comes to an end against Premier League opposition, with both teams just a week away from getting their respective campaigns underway.

Everton are back in action on Sunday, playing a testimonial game for former striker Duncan Ferguson, but Rosler anticipates facing a full-strength side on Saturday.

“We knew that they had a Sunday game but Roberto Martinez has given me the assurance that it will be a strong team,” he said. “It’s a good test for them as well.

“Everton are a top club in this country, they have a strong squad. We will face stiff opposition.”

The head coach also insists that his starting line-up against Everton is not necessarily the one he plans to field for the season-opener against Burnley seven days later

“With the way I want to play, the way we practice and the way we have played in pre-season, there’s a very demanding and energetic playing style,” he explained.

“There’s a natural level of rotation. The team who starts against Everton is probably not the same team who starts against Burnley and definitely not the team who starts against Doncaster.

“If I’m only using 11 players, I don’t think we will achieve our goals. We will rotate in a sensible way but not to lose our consistency, energy and quality.

“We want to make sure that we are keeping the squad going because every player has to see that they have a chance when he’s performing well in training to play in games at the weekend.”

Reflecting on the past seven days since the squad returned from their pre-season tour, Rosler said: “It’s been a week to refresh physically and mentally to get the players sharper.

“We’ve had shorter training sessions and less training sessions.

“We had an internal game. Some players who have had more minutes played less; those who haven’t had a lot of minutes in pre-season got more.

“Everybody got what they needed this week and we’re looking forward to the Everton game. It will be a real test again.

“We need to make sure that everybody comes up to speed and that helped us to achieve the goal. I think most players are in good shape for the start of the season.

“We are confident that we have had a good pre-season work-wise. Performance-wise I felt that we got stronger and stronger each game.

“Now, we should improve again against Everton because that is needed – hopefully over the full distance.”

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