Dawn breaks in Leeds with a smell of menace. Police out by breakfast, a slow-moving filet of yellow hi-vis beating the streets, lining the alleyways, scanning the trains for trouble. In the stands, songs about Munich and Istanbul, Mason Greenwood and Jimmy Savile. On the pitch, skewering tackles, crunching limbs, collisions you can physically hear. The atmosphere is magnificent, even if it comes from the ugliest of places.
Leeds have committed the most fouls in the Premier League this season, Manchester United are fourth in that list, and the two clubs have hated each other for decades. Perhaps this was the inevitable result: a kind of bestial melee, RB Leipzig v RB Leipzig, in which for long periods neither team could get a foothold on the game because they were too busy getting a foothold on each other.
