They had built a wall of sound at Elland Road and the volume had barely dropped, every minute full of fury, loathing, visceral roars and taunts.
There were screams of approbation when tackles flew in and jeers of derision when a Manchester United player was hurt. The noise and intensity were relentless. For Erik ten Hag and his team this was football as a test of character. This was trial by hostility.
Then, 10 minutes from the end, the noise, fury and hope ceased. The ball hung in the air from Luke Shaw’s superb cross from the left and the home fans saw Marcus Rashford rising unmarked eight yards out.
What a season he is having and this was one of the highlights of it, a goal that said a lot about his fortitude as well as his ability. It was the England striker’s 21st goal of the campaign, one shy of his biggest ever total, amassed during 2019-20. He is not just back to his best, he is better than ever.
It must have felt like deliverance as well as victory for Rashford and his team-mates after so long running the gauntlet. Premier League footballers as pampered millionaires? They did not play like that yesterday. This was a good old-fashioned street-fight, no holds barred. A crowd of 36,919, most of them Leeds supporters, tried to will their team away from the relegation zone, but now they had to admit defeat.
Leeds probably deserved a point in the second meeting between these sides in five days but it was hard to begrudge Ten Hag’s team the victory, too.
There are not many places like Elland Road in English football any more. There are not many places like this in a Premier League that sometimes feels as though it is too neat, ordered, controlled and corporate. Elland Road is a throwback atmosphere and Manchester United showed they could handle it and prosper.
That atmosphere, sadly, included Leeds fans goading visiting supporters about the Munich Air Disaster and away followers singing about the deaths of Leeds supporters in Istanbul in 2000. It remains a revolting part of the modern game and disfigured the match. ‘The league is treating the issue of tragedy chanting as a priority,’ a Premier League statement said later, ‘and as a matter of urgency.’
United’s victory was garnished by a second goal, from substitute Alejandro Garnacho, and it was a fitting way for them to move ahead of Manchester City, at least for a couple of hours, into second in the Premier League.
A few years ago, in a time before Ten Hag, United would have folded in the white heat of this game, but they are made of sterner stuff now.
Defeat sent Leeds deeper into trouble and they have now gone nine league games without a win. They sacked their manager, Jesse Marsch, last week and are still looking for a replacement.
Caretaker manager Michael Skubala took charge again here, but Leeds will hope to name a permanent replacement soon because they are teetering on the brink of the relegation zone. They play Everton next weekend.
Their fans did their best for them yesterday. The atmosphere was relentlessly intense and adversarial from the kick-off. The visitors took it and it was met with a thunderous roar of derision. Harry Maguire’s first long ball forward was repelled by a towering header from Robin Koch. That was greeted with a visceral shout of approval that seemed to come deep from the stands.
Then Tyler Adams stopped Jadon Sancho, who was making his first start since October, in his tracks with an unforgiving but fair tackle. Sancho was catapulted into the air and another roar cracked the Yorkshire skies.
When Weston McKennie launched a well-timed sliding tackle that sent Tyrell Malacia flying, there was another roar, followed by hoots of derision when Malacia stayed down. Adams and McKennie were superb in midfield. Marsch may have gone but there is still American steel at this club.
There was even the occasional chance amid the mayhem. Leeds created the first when Max Wober hooked a ball from the goal-line towards the near post. Patrick Bamford tried to help it on but failed to make contact. David de Gea only half cleared and Crysencio Summerville rushed in to sidefoot the loose ball just over the bar.
Soon the bookings came as Junior Firpo was shown a yellow card for another foul on Sancho, Fred was booked for a challenge on Summerville and McKennie had his name taken for kicking Rashford up in the air. The crowd approved of all of it. ‘Get into them, f*** them up,’ they roared.
Bruno Fernandes wasted a rare opening by dragging his shot across goal after Sancho had played him in and at the other end Maguire, who was making a rare start, dwelled too long on the ball and was dispossessed by Jack Harrison.
The Leeds man raced in on goal but Maguire had the intelligence to anticipate him moving the ball back on to his left foot and won it back.
De Gea made another mess of clearing a scooped shot from Summerville just before the interval but it was as the half edged into added time that the first shot on target was produced.
It was a gift from Leeds. Wober tried to pass the ball out from the back but Fernandes blocked it and sprinted in on Meslier. He steadied himself and tried to drill a low shot into the corner but the French goalkeeper deflected it to safety with his right boot.
The pace did not drop after the break. De Gea saved well from Summerville and Luke Ayling’s shot was deflected just wide by Shaw, while Diogo Dalot crashed a piledriver off the face of the Leeds bar.
The atmosphere had not calmed, either. When Fernandes went down after a grapple with Wober, the Leeds fans taunted him. ‘You’re just a soft, scum b******,’ they sang over and over again.
As the game moved into its closing stages, De Gea saved well to deny Summerville again but when the visitors broke forward 10 minutes from time, they finally broke the deadlock.
The ball was worked to Shaw on the left and he curled a brilliant cross into the box. Rashford had found space between Firpo and Wober and rose to guide a precise header into the net. Meslier did not move.
Five minutes later, United doubled their lead. Wout Weghorst, who had played a peripheral role, played in Garnacho. He shaped to curl his shot around Meslier but caught him out by drilling it to the near post instead. The keeper got a hand to it but could only deflect it on to the woodwork and then watch it bounce over the line.
After the game, Skubala praised Ten Hag for the job he has done at Manchester United ‘getting them fighting’ again.
As for the Dutchman himself, he seemed surprised when asked about the intensity of the occasion. ‘I didn’t feel the hostility,’ he said. ‘It was a great ambience.’
Things have changed at Old Trafford. It has been a long time coming, but this manager and these players are up for the fight.
SOURCE: dailymail.co.uk
