Anyone unfortunate enough to have used the shambolic TransPennine Express rail service between Leeds and Manchester this winter could be forgiven for suspecting the distance separating the cities has somehow increased.
Unfortunately for Michael Skubala, the Leeds caretaker manager, the gap between his club and Erik ten Hag’s now looks positively vast. Barely 50 miles separate Elland Road and Old Trafford but while Manchester United headed back west across the hills with their hopes of Champions League qualification enhanced, Skubala’s players are deep in relegation trouble.
Admittedly for 80 minutes Leeds went toe to toe with their illustrious guests, giving Ten Hag’s players a few frights but, ultimately, and not for the first time this season, they burned themselves out. In the final few minutes the home team were running on empty, mentally as much as physically, and goals from Marcus Rashford and Alejandro Garnacho duly secured a potentially pivotal away win.
While Manchester United sit five points clear of fourth-placed Newcastle and seven in front of fifth-placed Tottenham, Leeds are one point above the relegation zone, before Saturday’s visit to third-bottom Everton, and have gone a club record-equalling nine games without a Premier League win.
By Saturday the Yorkshire club hope to have installed a new manager to replace Jesse Marsch, who was sacked last Monday, but for the moment Skubala is probably holding the fort as competently as anyone.
After all Rashford said he was “shocked and surprised” by the Leeds XI that secured a 2-2 draw at Old Trafford on Wednesday.
Four days on it initially appeared little had changed. Within seconds of kick-off Rashford was, to Elland Road’s considerable delight, unceremoniously bundled off the ball by Luke Ayling, while a subsequent feisty Tyler Adams challenge left Jadon Sancho crumpled in a heap.
Leeds were heartened by the defensive wobbles among a visiting back four featuring a centre-back pairing of Harry Maguire and Luke Shaw protected by a central midfield axis of Fred and Marcel Sabitzer.
It did not seem the most secure of arrangements, particularly as Tyrell Malacia, nominally Erik ten Hag’s left-back, drifted so far out of position that at times he could be spotted in central midfield. Attacking, tucked in full-backs are all very well but this seemed to be taking things to extremes.
The upshot was that Manchester United conceded a series of free-kicks in dangerous positions and Leeds sensed opportunity.
With Sancho, making his first League start since October, and Bruno Fernandes failing to exert the desired impact, Wout Weghorst looked isolated and Ten Hag was clearly missing the midfield control customarily provided by the suspended Casemiro.
Tellingly, Maguire survived a potentially embarrassing cameo involving his dispossession by Jack Harrison before he atoned with a decent recovery tackle.
Yet for all the apparent visiting flaws there were few clearcut – or even half – chances in a scrappy, niggly, foul-punctuated first half. Highlights were few and far between, although David de Gea did save smartly from Crysencio Summerville and Illan Meslier reacted well to divert Fernandes’s shot with an outstretched foot.
Otherwise, there were so many fouls that any sort of flow, let alone rhythmic passing, proved impossible for either side. Remarkably all this feuding produced only three yellow cards; maybe a few more on Paul Tierney’s part might have enhanced the aesthetics?
Off the pitch the raucously aggressive soundtrack from the stands was blemished by some appallingly moronic chants relating to club tragedies in Munich and Istanbul from small minorities within both sets of support.
Indeed an, in turns, electrically exhilarating and sometimes unpleasantly attritional atmosphere arguably affected the game in a negative way.
Malacia’s response was to push forwards and inwards so frequently his side were often in effect operating a makeshift back three.
At one point Patrick Bamford looked to have unhinged that overstretched rearguard but, just as he shaped to shoot, Fred nipped in to whisk the ball from his toecaps. Heeding that warning, Ten Hag swiftly replaced Malacia with Lisandro Martínez, leaving the impressive Shaw to revert to left-back.
Leeds were finally tiring and very nearly fell behind when Diogo Dalot hit the crossbar with Meslier wrong-footed.
Despite De Gea doing well to deny Summerville, home concentration levels had slipped and Rashford capitalised by heading an unstoppable opener after Shaw connected with Sabitzer’s wonderful diagonal ball before providing a defence-deconstructing, subtly curving cross.
Travelling fans were still celebrating Rashford’s 21st club goal of the season when Meslier was beaten again after Garnacho’s glorious run and angled, perfectly calibrated shot which brushed the inside of a post en route beyond him.
Rashford and Weghorst had subsequent efforts disallowed for offside but, by then, the contest was over and the distance between these traditional enemies had grown a little bigger.
