Teams often find it difficult to balance domestic club football with the Europa League, with one sometimes suffering at the hands of the other.
However, Everton have failed to perform in both the Premier League and Europa League this season, despite a large outlay on transfers in the summer. The man who spent the money, Ronald Koeman, has left the club and David Unsworth will take charge of this game.
Everton’s hosts, Lyon, have enjoyed a promising start to the season and not only look good to qualify from Europa League Group E but also sit third in Ligue 1, which is a Champions League qualifying place.
The French club have been on a great run of form in recent weeks and trends show they are unbeaten in their last seven games in all competitions and have lost just one match all season, which was against Paris Saint-Germain.
Lyon have won their last four games in a row, including the excellent 2-1 win at Everton in the reverse Europa League fixture. They have been scoring plenty of goals and have scored 2 or more goals in six of their last seven games in all competitions.
Lyon are undefeated at home this season and have won four and drawn one of their last five home Europa League matches.
Everton make the short trip to France knowing they must win if they want to have any chance of qualifying for the next round.
The start the match bottom of the group with only 1 point from their three games and a defeat is likely to see them eliminated from the tournament.
Results have simply not been good enough for Everton this season and they have failed to win any of their last seven games in all competitions. There have been two draws and five defeats, including a 2-2 home draw with Apollon and 2-1 defeat against Lyon, both in the Europa League.
Since the Premier League started in August, Everton have failed to win an away match and they have lost five and drawn three of their eight games. The Toffees struggled in their only away group game to date, losing 3-0 at Atalanta.
Team news and Lyon will be without the injured duo of Clement Grenier and Pape Cheikh plus they have doubts over Ferland Mendy. Mariano is expected to start in attack with support from Nabil Fekir, who has been in good form.
Everton travel without Ramiro Funes Mori, Yannick Bolasie, Seamus Coleman, Ross Barkley, James McCarthy and Michael Keane, who are all injured. Unsworth may make some changes from the team which lost at Leicester City on Sunday but he has limited options.
Trends show there have been over 2.5 goals in four of Lyon’s last five home Europa League games. there should be more goals in this one but with the bulk of them coming from the home team. Expect to see Lyon come out on top, with over 2.5 goals scored.