Manchester United news and links

Rafael and Fabio are tipped to play a big part in United’s future.

In January 1994, Old Trafford paid solemn tribute to Sir Matt Busby.

United’s youngsters provided the silver lining to the 1994/95 season.

SIR Alex Ferguson will aim his big guns at City on Wednesday after United’s FA Cup humiliation against Leeds.


The Reds boss had planned to use the third-round tie as a warm-up for the Carling Cup semi-final first leg against the Blues.

Spirit of the club’s illustrious predecessors plain to see as Leeds bring Cup humiliation to Old Trafford

If you wanted to point to a moment when it became clear than something unusual was on the cards, you might identify the one, 12 minutes into the first half, when Neil Kilkenny played a short reverse pass to Jermaine Beckford midway inside the Manchester United half. If you half-closed your eyes, it could have been Billy Bremner redirecting the ball with a characteristic little flourish and Allan Clarke gliding on to it with frictionless movement before hitting a smooth 20-yard drive.

Maybe Simon Grayson’s Leeds United are not quite ready to be compared with Don Revie’s team. But those survivors of the great Leeds of the late 60s and early 70s in attendance would have recognised some of their very finest characteristics in the performance of their successors.

Kilkenny, a 24-year-old Enfield-born Australian, and Michael Doyle, a 28-year-old Irishman on loan from Coventry City, patrolled the central midfield with a snap and an efficiency that suggested a reincarnation of the partnership with which Bremner and John Giles once stretched and broke their opponents. On this occasion the victims were Anderson and Darron Gibson, exposed as listless and unimaginative. Doyle’s through ball for Beckford to shoot narrowly wide after 78 minutes represented the epitome of the sort of lethal vision associated with Giles, and it should have enabled Beckford to double the lead which, an hour earlier, he had given the visitors.

At the back, Richard Naylor and Patrick Kisnorbo bolted the door against the assaults of Wayne Rooney and Dimitar Berbatov with a resolve that must have brought nostalgic smiles to the faces of Jack Charlton and Paul Madeley. Up front, Beckford’s Clarke-like elusiveness was supported by the dogged persistence of Luciano Becchio, doing the job that once belonged to the tireless Mick Jones.

If Leeds managed to evoke the spirit of their illustrious predecessors, Manchester United achieved something very different. It was as though a team starting with Gary Sprake and ending with Eddie Gray had been confronted by one consisting of the likes of Massimo Taibi, Mike Duxbury, Ian Ure, Clayton Blackmore, Eric Djemba-Djemba, Peter Davenport and Ted MacDougall. Sir Alex Ferguson, having contradicted his claim that he would send out his strongest team by making seven changes to the starting line-up from their last match against Wigan four days earlier, looked on as his reshuffled side fell to their first third-round defeat in his time at the club: an authentic humiliation at the hands of side 42 places beneath them in the league standings.

What was missing from Grayson’s team, thank goodness, was the edge of malice that made Revie’s players impossible for the neutral to admire without reservation. There were a couple of little scuffles involving half a dozen players, but although Kisnorbo took the field with his head already bandaged, as if in advance recognition of a brutal physical battle, Leeds tended to leave the nefarious stuff to their opponents, who were not very good at it.

When the likes of Bremner and Norman Hunter bared their teeth, they were not making empty threats. Most of the more serious offences were committed by players in red shirts, but the snarling of Gary Neville and the sly trips that brought yellow cards for Gibson and Wes Brown had no effect on the course of the match, beyond tilting the moral balance towards the visitors, who simply got on with the job of trying to play neat and effective football, hurling their bodies in the way of the ball in defence and constantly on the alert for opportunities to exploit Beckford’s pace on the counter-attack.

And after the news of a crowd of 5,000 for the tie between two Premier League clubs at Wigan and of a mere 12,000 rattling around Middlesbrough’s Riverside Stadium for the visit of Manchester City’s all-stars, it was good to see an Old Trafford crowd close to its 75,000 capacity. So the FA Cup is obsolete, its traditions dead, its magic extinct? Don’t try telling that to the 9,000 Leeds fans who crossed Saddleworth Moor, or the ticketless tens of thousands watching on television. The West Yorkshire team’s victory over the reigning league champions was a cup tie in the finest traditions of football’s oldest knockout competition, yielding a result that will take its place in the history of both clubs.

For Leeds, it could prove to be a win almost as significant as the one squeezed out by Manchester United against Nottingham Forest in the third round 20 years ago, when legend says that Mark Robins’s header kept a besieged Alex Ferguson in a job. Grayson knows his team is good enough to vault comfortably from League One into the Championship; now he can be confident not merely of their ability to survive but to thrive at higher levels. Sir Alex, by contrast, will have been dismayed less by his players’ lack of inventiveness than by their inability to react to his glaring presence on the touchline.

But this match was not about Manchester United. One good measure of Leeds’s achievement is that whatever outrages Revie’s side inflicted on your own favourites 40 years ago, and however ineradicable you consider the stains they left on the tapestry of the English game, you could not for a moment begrudge Grayson’s side their marvellous victory.

• Five minutes of injury-time ‘an insult’, says manager
• Simon Grayson dedicates victory to the Leeds fans

Sir Alex Ferguson condemned his Manchester United players and admitted their performance had “shocked” him as Leeds United, of League One, produced one of the biggest recent surprises of the FA Cup by eliminating the 11-times winners at Old Trafford today.

Jermaine Beckford’s 19th-minute goal gave Leeds a deserved place in the fourth round, where their opponents will be Tottenham Hotspur at White Hart Lane, while simultaneously consigning the Premier League champions to their first Cup defeat against lower-league opposition in the Ferguson era, and their first third-round exit since 1984. The manager was visibly angry as he accused his players of collectively letting down the club.

Ferguson’s fixation with stoppage-time also led him to describe the referee Chris Foy’s decision to award five minutes at the end as “an insult to the game and the players out there”. Those comments may go down badly at the Football Association at a time when Ferguson is under orders to treat match officials with greater respect and has a suspended two-match touchline ban hanging over him but the manager’s real ire was reserved for his players.

“I didn’t expect that,” he said. “The preparation was good but I was shocked at that performance. We didn’t start right and Leeds did. They fought like tigers but you expect that from any team coming to Old Trafford. It’s a disappointment. Human beings can always surprise you but I didn’t expect that. I don’t think any of them can say they had a good day. We never got going and the quality of passing – the whole performance – was bad. Leeds had a far better appetite for the game than us. You need luck and they got it but they deserved it because they played really well.”

Leeds had not won at Old Trafford since 1981 and the manner of the victory suggested it could be the springboard for the Yorkshire club, currently top of League One, to emerge from a sustained period of decline.

“Our club has had a lot of negativity over the last five or six years, with administration and two relegations, but I said when I came to the club that it had reached rock bottom and could not go lower,” the manager, Simon Grayson, said. “I knew somebody could take the club forward to the Premier League and beyond.

“Our fans deserved this result, not because we have taken 9,000 to Old Trafford but because we have taken 4,000 to Bristol Rovers on a Tuesday night and every away allocation we have had. Our fans have backed us when sometimes they have not had to. They had excuses and they could have downed tools and decided football was an expensive business. So this is a result for them.”

Beckford now has 20 goals for the season but is out of contract at the end of it. “He either signs a new contract, leaves at the end of the season or we sell him now and get some money if we think it is too good an opportunity to turn down,” Grayson said. “He has shown today what he is all about. He has worked ever so hard for the team, he has taken his opportunity and he could score goals at any level. The best case scenario is that Jermaine signs a new contract or gets us the goals to earn promotion and then leaves.”

No striker has caused more problems at Old Trafford since Fernando Torres inspired Liverpool to a 4-1 victory last April but Ferguson accused his defenders of ignoring his pre-match instructions. “We’re disappointed about their goal because we had spoken about it before. Beckford has got a lot of pace and we were caught napping. It was a bad goal for us to lose but the whole performance from us was bad in the first half.”

Next up is the first leg of the Carling Cup semi-final against Manchester City on Wednesday. “A lot of these players won’t be playing,” Ferguson said. “We have to bounce back and get it out of our system. You have to get over these kind of results quickly.”

The day had begun badly for United when Nemanja Vidic, in the words of their assistant manager, Mike Phelan, “felt something was not quite right with his body” in the warm-up and told Ferguson he could not play. There was little sympathy, however, and Ferguson’s only words on the subject, with Vidic reputedly unsettled in Manchester, were a curt: “I couldn’t tell you what is wrong with Nemanja.”

Sir Alex Ferguson criticises his players as Manchester United are dumped out of the FA Cup by League One side Leeds.

• Sir Alex Ferguson will change team for City semi-final
• Manchester United manager criticises referee’s timekeeping

Sir Alex Ferguson is ready to make changes after admitting he was shocked by Manchester United’s abject performance against Leeds.

Jermaine Beckford’s first-half goal consigned United to a first third-round FA Cup exit, and their first defeat by lower league opposition, since they were beaten at Bournemouth in 1984.

Ferguson could offer no excuse or explanation for his side’s defeat, though he could not resist an aside at the referee Chris Foy for adding five minutes’ stoppage time at the end of the match. The United manager thought more should have been allowed.

Having declared he would rely on many of the younger players involved for the first leg of the Carling Cup semi-final at Manchester City on Wednesday, Ferguson has had an immediate change of heart.

“We have a semi-final on Wednesday night and a lot of these players today won’t be playing,” he said. “You have to view that performance in its right light. I am shocked by the performance because our preparation for the game was very good. But we never got going. The quality of the passing and whole performance was bad.”

On Foy’s time-keeping after a second-half punctuated by petty disputes and an injury to Beckford, plus five substitutions, Ferguson said: “The referee gave five minutes. That is an insult to the game and the players out there.”

It also rather deflected from the paucity of the home side’s performance, and Ferguson admitted Leeds had shown more determination.

“Leeds had far bigger appetite than us,” admitted the manager. “Human beings can always surprise you but we didn’t expect that today. We didn’t start right, Leeds got their goal and it was something to hold on to. We spoke about Beckford’s pace up front and we were caught napping.”

Ferguson excused only the substitute Antonio Valencia from criticism, which presumably also included Michael Owen, who had a couple a decent chances to pull United back on level terms but failed to take them.

“I don’t think any of them can say they had a good day,” said Ferguson. “It took us 10 minutes to find him but only Valencia can say he had a good performance. You have to get over these kind of results quickly. We have to make sure we are ready for Wednesday.”

• Simon Grayson praises ‘outstanding’ Leeds players
•Old Trafford win ‘a long time coming’ says Richard Naylor

Leeds United’s manager Simon Grayson said his side thoroughly deserved their FA Cup third-round win at Manchester United, describing it as typical of the League One leaders’ performances all season.

Grayson paid particular tribute to Jermaine Beckford for his nerveless winner. The manager said: “It was a good ball from Jonathan Howson and Jermaine got in there and nine times out of 10 he finishes them off, and that’s what he did.

“He gave us an opportunity to go on and win the game from there and with a bit of luck that’s what we did. Full credit to the players, who were outstanding today, but it’s what they’ve been like all season.”

Grayson added that he intended to keep Beckford at Elland Road. Leeds appear certain to win promotion back to the Championship, although they might have to do so without Beckford, whose 20th goal of the season might be his last as his contract runs out in the summer, and the chairman Ken Bates is wary of the striker leaving for nothing.

However, Grayson is under no obligation to sell, especially now Leeds have banked a tidy sum from today’s exploits. “There are three scenarios,” said Grayson. “He can either sign a new contract now, or we can keep him until the end of the season and he leaves then. The worst-case scenario is that we are offered some money now that is too good to turn down. But we would have to have replacements lined up if that was to happen.”

It has already been suggested Newcastle United have made an offer, something Grayson refused to discuss. “Today he [Beckford] showed what he is all about. He worked hard for the team and got his opportunity,” said Grayson. “That is five goals in the last three games now. That is a big commodity.

“We are not looking to sell him but money talks with any player. I knew as soon as the window opened there would be a lot of talk about him.

“We don’t want him to leave unless it is the best thing for him and, long term, the football club. But, if we do let him go, we won’t let him go on the cheap.”

Referring to Brian Flynn being the last man to score a winner for Leeds at Old Trafford, in February 1981, Grayson added: “I saw Flynny the other week and he reminded me he was the last player to score the winner at Old Trafford.

“I told the players before the game this was the opportunity to be a new hero. I’m sure we’ll be celebrating in Leeds over the next few days and the players might have tomorrow off then start ready for the Wycombe game at the weekend.”

The Leeds captain Richard Naylor, a lifelong fan of the club, admitted the victory had been “a long time coming”.

He told ITV1: “We’ve had to wait a long time since we last won here and I’m really proud of the lads and the supporters. I thought we had a few chances to make it two late on. They’re always going to get chances at Old Trafford, you wouldn’t expect anything else, but we dug in when we had to.”

UNITED were dumped out of the FA Cup on their own patch by arch rivals Leeds.


Jermaine Beckford’s first-half goal sent Leeds into dreamland at Old Trafford.

There will be Leeds United supporters who take issue with the description of this once mighty club as “giant-killers” but, when you consider that their last league game was at Stockport County and the next is Wycombe Wanderers, nobody could dispute this was a victory that has grabbed the FA Cup by its shirt collar and reminded us all about the improbability of football. How, you wonder, can the FA Cup possibly produce anything more stunning in the next rounds?

Manchester United, the 11-time winners, had not been knocked out of the third round since losing at Bournemouth in 1984 and yet the team from League One played with not a hint of trepidation. They were strong in the challenge, quick to the ball, and the most remarkable result of a weekend otherwise devoid of upsets felt like a defining moment for a club that will want to forget the last decade in a hurry.

What we can say for certain is that Leeds look like a team that have finally found their feet and rediscovered some pride. Jermaine Beckford’s winning goal, 19 minutes into a wretched day for Manchester United, can automatically be added to the annals of great FA Cup moments, a goal that will be replayed a thousand times but never too often for those 9,000 supporters who had come across the M62 maybe hoping, at best, to get a replay.

Beckford was outstanding as Leeds inflicted the kind of embarrassment on Manchester United that few could ever have envisaged. Sir Alex Ferguson would later complain that every one of his players had a bad day and it was difficult to argue considering they did not subject their opponents to any sustained pressure until the five minutes of stoppage time.

Ferguson likes to boast that no other team conjures up as much late drama but every time a player in red got a sight of goal someone in white, or some part of the goalkeeper Casper Ankergren’s anatomy, somehow got in the way. At one point Bradley Johnson went into a tackle with a diving header. The sight of Patrick Kisnorbo, bandaged head, blood pouring from his nose, epitomised the Leeds spirit of togetherness. It felt like a trick of the mind that this, indeed, was a side belonging to the third tier.

This, however, was not just a victory for hard toil and organisation. There was inspiration to go with the perspiration. Beckford, fast and lithe, was a constant menace, causing as many problems as any Premier League striker to visit Old Trafford this season. Robert Snodgrass, a substitute, curled a free-kick against the crossbar and even if the home side had marginally more chances there was a sense of desperation attached to their play. It is always a sign that Ferguson’s men are not playing well when he leaves his electrically heated dug-out, and his eyes were burning holes in his players from the first moment he appeared in the technical area.

By then Leeds were in front, Jonathan Howson’s long pass releasing Beckford in the knowledge the striker has the pace and movement to trouble the most accomplished defence and a player who was working as an RAC repair man three years ago supplying the rest. Wes Brown, Nemanja Vidic’s replacement, had let his opponent get a yard away and, even though Beckford’s first touch took him away from goal, Tomasz Kuszczak was slow to leave his goal-line when quicker reactions meant the ball could have been gathered. Beckford got there ahead of the goalkeeper and clipped a left-foot shot just inside the post.

If we are going to be generous, Ferguson could cite the fact he lost Vidic in the warm-up and that three-quarters of his defenders were coming back from other injury problems. There were seven changes in total but, even so, it was astonishing to see the lack of cohesion and fluidity in Ferguson’s side. Wayne Rooney never stopped trying but his finishing was erratic. Dimitar Berbatov flickered only sporadically and by the end the substitute Michael Owen had resorted to throwing himself to the floor to try to win a penalty.

Those were frantic moments but nobody should think it was an onslaught. Leeds could also reflect on Beckford shooting wide when clear on goal 10 minutes from the end and there were long spells when they out-passed their opponents. The victory was no fluke and that, perhaps, was the most shocking aspect.

MEN Sport’s United reporter Stuart Mathieson gives his verdict on the players who faced Leeds at Old Trafford.

Manchester United manager Sir Alex Ferguson admits Wayne Rooney’s prolific form may be harming team-mate Michael Owen’s international chances

League One leaders Leeds United pulled off the shock of the third round with a well-earned win over Manchester United at Old Trafford

Good afternoon and a happy new year to one and all. It’s been a damp squib of an FA Cup third round so far, with the broadcast of triumphant scenes from the dressing rooms of giant-killing minnows having been non-existent thus far.

But if there were cameras in the Leeds United dressing room, there’s every chance we’d see pre-match scenes of the League One side’s players milling about in a state of undress, whooping exultantly and swigging from bottles of champagne, because they’ll fancy their chances of causing an upset after seeing the not-entirely-full-strength-but-not-that-weak-either Manchester United team selected by Sir Alex Ferguson.

In the first meeting between these two sides in nearly six years, Ferguson has named Gabriel Obertan, Fabio Da Silva, Danny Welbeck and Darron Gibson in his starting line-up to face the Yorkshiremen.

Man Utd: Kuszczak, Neville, Vidic, Jonathan Evans,
Fabio Da Silva, Welbeck, Gibson, Anderson, Obertan, Berbatov, Rooney.
Subs: Amos, Brown, Owen, Giggs, Tosic, Carrick,
Rafael Da Silva.

Leeds: Ankergren, Crowe, Naylor, Kisnorbo, Hughes, Howson, Kilkenny, Doyle, Johnson, Beckford, Becchio.
Subs: David Martin, Prutton, Grella, Michalik, Snodgrass, Capaldi, White.

Referee: Chris Foy (Merseyside)

An email: “This fixture is just a reminder of how not only football has changed but of how footballers are unrecognisable compared with their predecessors,” writes Paul Neilan. “Bobby Charlton’s opening lines from his autobiography is just one such example:

‘Now, when I look back on my life and remember all that I wanted from it as a young boy in the North East, I see more clearly than ever it is a miracle. I see one privilege heaped upon another. I wonder all over again how so much could come to one man simply because he was able to do something which for him was so natural and easy, and which he knew from the start he loved to do more than anything else.’

“It’d bring a tear to a stone, as the fella says, but if you heard a modern footballer say that, you’d think he was an arrogant bastard on the boast.”

Pre-match niceties: There are 9,000 Leeds United among the 76,000 sell-out crowd at Old Trafford today and on ITV, Brighton manager and pundit Gus Poyet is hopeful that both sets of fans will behave themselves and “today will be about the football”.

Fergie’s pre-match interview: “It’s disappointing for Leeds to have sun … eh, gone to the depths they’ve gone to, but they’ll be back. Marvellous atmosphere … young players won’t be phased etc and so on.”

Leeds manager Simon Grayson: “I try to send my team out every time we play to try and win the match. We’re going to go and enjoy the occasion and hopefully do ourselves credit by the end of the game. Hopefully it’ll be a decent game with a decent atmosphere.”

The teams march out of the tunnel and head for the centre-circle: Both are in their customary home strips, with Manchester United’s players kitted out in red shirts, white shorts and black socks, while the men from the other side of the Pennines Leeds wear white shirts, shorts and socks, with blue and yellow trim. Not long now …

1 min: Wayne Rooney and Dimitar Berbatov get the game under way, with Manchester United playing from left to right, away from the Stretford End. FYI: Nemanja Vidic was withdrawn injured by Manchester United after the warm-up, so Wes Brown starts and Antonio Valencia is on the bench.

2 min: Leeds get off to a good start, setting up base camp on the edge of the final third, stroking the ball back and forth from touchline to touchline as they look for an opening.

3 min: United win possession and go on a counter-attack that ends with Darron Gibson taking the first shot of the match from distance. It’s high and wide.

3 min: Gary Neville gets his first touch of the ball in the corner nearest the away end and is greeted by a raucous chorus of boos that precedes a cheery ditty about his alleged fondness for treating his own body like an amusement park. Manchester United’s fans immediately counter with a rousing rendition of “Gary Neville is a Red”.

5 min: Bradley Johnson wins a corner off Gary Neville after a strong run down the left flank. The ball is swung into the penalty area, Tomasz Kuszczak only half-clears with a feeble punch and Wayne Rooney tidies up.

7 min: With his back to goal in the Manchester United penalty area, Leeds United striker Jermaine Beckford, who is looking to score his 20th goal of the season this afternoon, holds off Gary Neville while chesting down a cross from the right flank, turns and shoots high over the bar.

8 min: Manchester United win a throw-in in the Leeds right-back position, which Neville hurls towards the goalmouth. It’s half-cleared, Darron Gibson picks up the ball and sends a cross fizzing across the face of goal from the left wing. Dimitar Berbatov could probably have got on the end of it if he’d reacted quickly. Or at all.

11 min: For Leeds, Jermaine Beckford tries a shot from about 35 yards. It’s on target, but doesn’t trouble Man United goalkeeper Tomasz Kuszczak in the slightlest.

12 min: After an Anderson lunge that was as unnecessary as it was rash, Bradley Johnson appeals for either a corner or a free-kick. This being Old Trafford, he gets neither.

14 min: A let-off for Leeds. Wayne Rooney slalomed between a couple of defenders on the right flank and pulls the ball across the edge of the Leeds penalty area. The ball is this much out of the unmarked Darron Gibson’s reach and the attack breaks down when a United goal looked a formality.

16 min: With the ball dropping over his right shoulder, Wayne Rooney tries to side-foot it goalwards from 10 yards, but miscues what is, even for him, a difficult chance. In the dugout, Sir Alex Ferguson slaps his forehead, as if to suggest the striker should have headed it. Moments later, Anderson sends the ball wide with a wild slash from distance.

GOAL! Man United 0-1 Leeds (Beckford 19) Jermaine Beckford scores a beauty! Jonthan Howson picks him out with a marvellous 60-yard pass from the back, Beckford sprints between the centre-halves, but his first touch is a mite leaden-footed and takes the ball left to the edge of the six-yard box. Having hesiutated initially, Kuszczak comes off his line but is just beaten to the ball by Beckford, who pokes it goalwards with a deft flick. The ball takes what seems like an eternity to trickle over the line just inside the far post.

21 min: Manchester United are all over the place here - their defence is shell-shocked. Luciano Becchio sends a free header over the bar when he really should have done better.

21 min: Wayne Rooney was furious when that goal went in and had every right to be. Wes Brown was very poorly positioned and shouldn’t have let Beckford get in behind him, while Kuszczak should have been more decisive in coming off his line to collect a ball that had travelled more than 60 yards before reaching the Leeds striker.

24 min: Berbatov and Rooney link up well to spring the Leeds defence and Rooney looked to have equalised after flicking the ball under the onrushing Leeds goalkeeper Casper Ankergren. The ball’s heading goalwards, but Jason Crowe saves the day with a marvellous goal-line clearance.

27 min: This is a cracking Cup tie and the upset-o-meter has been ratcheted up to 11 with Leeds scoring the opener. They’re well worth their lead as they’ve really got stuck into United and haven’t been remotely cautious or overawed in their approach. It’s a shame more Premier League sides wouldn’t take a leaf out of their book.

29 min: United win a corner and the ball is played to Wayne Rooney on the edge of the Leeds penalty area. His traps the ball with a sublime first touch, then sends a dipping shot fizzing wide of the right post.

30 min: Ha ha! Sir Alex Ferguson is already pointing at his watch in a bid to bring referee Chris Foy’s attention to what he sees as time-wasting tactics by Leeds goalkeeper Casper Ankergren when it comes to taking his kick-outs.

32 min: Tom King writes from Pedant’s Corner, with regard to the managers’ pre-match interviews: “Has Fergie been watching too much Star Trek?” he asks. “Or did he mean the young players won’t be fazed?”

33 min: Danny Welbeck tries a shot from an acute angle when a ball across the edge of the six-yard box would probably have been the better option. That said, the only player available to head it if he had crossed was Gary Neville, which means the wildly optimistic shot from a ridiculous angle was the way forward.

35 min: Wes Brown gets the first yellow card of the game for a clip around the shins of Leeds striker Luciano Becchio. Poor old Wes is having a torrid time of it this afternoon.

36 min: “Should Rooney not be more furious with his own failure to score than with Wes Brown?” asks Klara Slätt, not unreasonably.

40 min: Manchester United win a free-kick in the Leeds right-back position. The ball is swung across the face of goal, but Richard Naylor heads it out for a corner.

41 min: The ball is sent in from the right corner and Jonny Evans rises highest to get his head on it at the far post. It’s a narrow angle and the ball goes wide despite his best attempts to send it back into the mixer.

41 min: There was an awful lot of shirt-pulling going on in the penalty area when that corner was taken - Manchester United could have had about five penalties. Why is this blatant fouling allowed to go unpunished in matches all over the UK week in, week out? Won’t somebody pleasse think of the children?

43 min: Leeds win a throw-in deep in Manchester United territory. It’s flung towards Becchio on the edge of the penalty area, but Wes Brown dispossesses him and launches the ball upfield.

44 min: Manchester United attack and with four on four, Gabriel Obertan pings the ball out wide to Danny Welbeck a couple of yards inside the left touchline. His first touch is Glendenning-esque and the ball bounces off his shin and out for a throw-in.

45 +1 min: For Man United, Fabio Da Silva sends in a cross from the left flank that’s too high for any of his team-mates. Leeds goalkeeper Casper Ankergren shepherds the ball out of play. Goal-kick.

Half-time: That was a great first-half - more please. Leeds are one up after as good a performance by a side visiting Old Trafford as you’ll ever see. The upset is very much on.

Have you seen this dignity-free aberration starring Jamie and Louise Redknapp yet? It’s just been on TV. Jesus wept, I can only conclude that they must have lost all their millions in a Ponzi scheme, because apart from being Grinning Idiocy’s Tess Daly and Vernon Kay, the looming prospect of abject penury is the only possible reason any married couple could have for publicly degrading themselves in such a fashion.

Jamie Redknapp shilling holidays he wouldn’t dream of going on himself by playing topless golf on a beach as his wife looks on with a lustful gleam in her eye. Has it come to this?

Oh Jamie. Oh Louise.

46 min: Manchester United win the ball from the kick-off and go straight on the attack, with Wayne Rooney galloping down the left wing and sending in a high cross, which is put out for a corner.

47 min: The ball’s sent in and only half-cleared as far as Danny Welbeck. He storms back into the Leeds penalty area and goes down under a challenge from Jonathan Howson. The shout goes up for a penalty, but none is forthcoming. Leeds break …

48 min: … and Wes Brown, who is on a yellow card, slides in to dispossess Howson on the edge of the Manchester United penalty area. The pair engage in afters, which are quickly broken up, then referee Chris Foy consults with his linesman before having a word with Gary Neville. I think he’s telling him to get Wes Brown to pull his head in a bit.

49 min: Danny Welbeck is sent galloping clear to chase a long ball and looks set to equalise with a diagonal shot from right to left, only to be foiled by an excellent save by Casper Ankergren.

52 min: Darron Gibson is booked for a late tackle on Michael Doyle. The mercury is creeping up the thermometer here and it’ll be surprising if both sides finish the game with 10 men.

53 min: Leeds skipper Richard Naylor goes into the book for a scything challenge on Wayne Rooney about 40 yards from goal. The free-kick is played short, Leeds clear ass far as Jermaine Beckford, who draws the foul from Wes Brown just inside the Manchester United half. Beckford’s pace is frightening and you can see Manchester United’s defenders panicking every time he gets the ball.

55 min: From the free-kick, Patrick Kisnorbo wellies the ball towards the Manchester United goal and the ball goes off a Manchester United head and out for a corner. The ball’s sent across the edge of the six-yard box and Wes Brown heads clear.

56 min: Manchester United substitutions: Antonio Valencia and Ryan Giggs on, Danny Welbeck and Gabriel Obertan off. The cavalry is on.

59 min: There’s a brief lull in what has been a frenetic second-half, with a few shanks and misplaced passes in quick succession serving to reduce the tempo.

60 min: There’s half an hour to go and League One side Leeds United continue to lead against Manchester United at Old Trafford on the back of Jermaine Beckford’s 19th minute strike.

61 min: “There was no need for that Jamie and Louise link,” writes Tom Murphy. “That was bang out of order. I am traumatised now.” There was every need for it, Tom. If it prevents just one person from booking their holiday with T***** C***, then it’ll have been worthwhile.

63 min: Michael Owen, who older readers will remember used to be as zippy as Jermaine Beckford, is warming up on the touchline for Manchester United. Fabio Da Silva links up well with Wayne Rooney on the edge of the Leeds United penalty area before curling a speculative effort inches wide of the top right-hand corner.

65 min: Wes Brown fouls Jermaine Beckford again, kicking through the back of him just outside the Manchester United penalty area. I’m not sure what Wes has to do to get sent off. He’s already on a yellow card and is fouling persistently. Free-kick for Leeds about 30 yards out, just left of centre.

66 min: Bradley Johnson steps up, shoots and hits the target but Tomasz Kuszczak saves fairly easily.

67 min: Antonio Valencia gallops down the right wing and crosses for Wayne Rooney, but Patrick Kisnorbo clears with a meaty header.

68 min: Manchester United substitution: Anderson off, Michael Owen on. He lines up alongside Dimitar Berbatov, with Wayne Rooney going out to the left wing and Ryan Giggs going into the centre of midfield alongside Darron Gibson.

70 min: Antonio Valencia tees up Michael Owen with a perfect pass and, practically standing on the penalty spot, the striker swivels and scews a feeble effort harmlessly wide. It was a glorious opportunity to equalise and he completely miskicked it.

71 min: With United pushing forward, Leeds go on a counter-attack and Bradley Johnson crosses from the left. The ball drops in no-man’s land between Jermaine Beckford and Tomasz Kuszczak, but it’s slightly nearer the goalkeeper, who is quickest to react.

73 min: “That T***** C*** holiday, Jamie and Louise didn’t take their two kids then?” inquires David Martin. “Louise is a bit of a brand-whore. According to wikipedia ’she has been seen as the face of a number of advertising campaigns: the Safe And White campaign for Boots, Flora’s’ Omega 3 products, Boots andBT. She is …[ continues at great length] … followed by The Louise Redknapp Nintendo Wii Fit Campaign in March 2009.”

76 min: Berbatov plays the ball down the right flank to Antonio Valencia, who turns Jason Crowe and squares the ball for Wayne Rooney. With the goal gaping, he balloons his first-time effort over the bar.

77 min: Michael Doyle picks out Jermaine Beckford with a marvellous defence-splitting pass and from the edge of the penalty area, the Leeds striker drags an excellent effort inches wide of the left upright.

78 min: Jonny Evans fouls Jermaine Beckford a couple of yards outside the D around the Manchester United penalty area. Free-kick for Leeds.

79 min: Robert Snodgrass, who has just come on for Jonathan Howson, stands over the free-kick, then curls a magnificent effort past the wall, beyond the reach of Kuszczak and off the cross-bar. That’s a great shot - he was very unlucky that didn’t go in.

81 min: Michael Owen appeals for a penalty after going down under a challenge from Andy Hughes on the edge of the Leeds penalty area. The ref is having none of it and orders him to his feet. Replays show that there was illegal contact from Hughes, but it was outside the penalty area.

83 min: Leeds win a corner, which they’re in no hurry to take. Snodgrass plays it short to Andy Hughes, who gives the ball away.

84 min: There’s six minutes of normal time remaining, but you can probably add another 25 for injuries if Manchester United are still 1-0 down at the end of normal time. This is Old Trafford, after all.

86 min: Wayne Rooney is caught napping by Robert Snodgrass, who disposssesses him on the edge of the Leeds United penalty area. Rooney gallops 50 yards after him to win the wall back.

88 min: Leeds striker Luciano Becchio goes off injured with what looks like cramp and is replaced by Slovakia international centre-half Lubomir Michalik.

89 min: The ball is pumped long to Dimitar Berbatov in the Manchester United penalty area, but his knock-down is nowhere near Michael Owen.

90 min: The board goes up - there’ll be a minimum of five minutes of added time.

90+1 min: Manchester United win a throw-in deep in Leeds territory, which Gary Neville takes long. Nothing comes of it. Moments later they win another one in a similar position on the other side of the pitch. The ball is eventually crossed towards Michael Owen at the far post, who heads wide under pressure from Jason Crowe.

90+3 min: Leeds try to run the clock down by making another substitution. Andy Hughes is replaced by the teenager Aidan White. It’s a like-for-like substitution - a left-back for a left-back.

90+3 min: There’s pandemonium in the Leeds penalty area as the ball pings around before falling for Wayne Rooney, who brings a great save out of Ankergren with a low drive.

90+6 min: We’re now into time added on to time added on. It looks like Leeds are going to pull off a huge shock here. They’ve ridden their luck at times but performed heroically and will be well worth their win.

Peep! Peep! Peep! It’s all over - Leeds have dumped Manchester United out of the FA Cup in the upset of the third round so far. They’ve been excellent all afternoon against a Manchester United side that - some comedy defending and wayward finishing from Rooney and Owen aside - didn’t actually play all that badly.

Post-match niceties: That was a smashing game of football and Leeds fans should be very proud of their team, who went toe to toe against the Premier League champions at Old Trafford, matched or bested them in nearly every department and emerged worthy winners. They go into the FA tombola for the fourth round, while United are now free to concentrate on the League and Champions League.

“That Beckford lad is a bit useful,” writes Anthony O’Connell. “I wonder would Rafa buy him for us?” He is useful and there’s a lot of talk that this might have been his last match for Leeds. His contract is up next summer, which means (a) he’s free to talk to other clubs and (b) that if Leeds want to get any money for him, they need to sell him on during the current transfer window.

• David Beckham admits envy at Ryan Giggs’ one-club career
• ‘I’d have loved to have stayed at Manchester United’

David Beckham claims he wishes he had never left Manchester United as he prepares to return to Old Trafford with Milan in the Champions League’s last 16 in March.

Beckham said he envies his former team-mate Ryan Giggs, who has spent his whole career at the club, while Beckham’s path has taken him to Real Madrid then to Los Angeles Galaxy. He is now preparing for a second loan spell with Milan.

“I’d have loved to have stayed at Manchester United for my whole career and never gone anywhere else but it just wasn’t meant to be,” he told BBC radio. “It takes a special person and a player to stay at a club for so many years. Ryan’s been there for so many years now and he’ll be part of Manchester United for life – he’s a Manchester boy and it runs through his blood.

“I’m so honoured to have played with Ryan through the years I did, and to know him as a person and a player. He deserves all the success he’s had this year and in the other years.”

Beckham added that he is taking nothing for granted despite the England manager Fabio Capello’s assertion that the former captain will almost certainly be a part of his 2010 World Cup squad.

Beckham said: “I’ve never expected anything. I know I have to play quite a lot for Milan. I’m prepared to do that. Everybody knows I’m prepared to work hard to be part of the England squad.

“I’ve always been very positive and I’ve always said I want to be available for England, whether I’m in the team or not. I’m passionate about playing for my country and I always want to be a part of the England squad.”

Leeds are two divisions lower than Manchester United, but the intense rivalry born in the Seventies lingers on

There’s a big game taking place at Old Trafford this afternoon. The television cameras will be there, the biggest crowd of the weekend will turn up even if the occasion is not quite sold out, and at the end everyone will want to know the score. Which is remarkable, really, given that Manchester United are playing at home in the third round of the FA Cup against a team two divisions below them.

Manchester United versus Leeds United just has to be a big game, even if the reasons are mostly historical and the two sides have not met for five years. In what may be a calculated snub towards Manchester City Sir Alex Ferguson now prefers to build up his team’s rivalry with Liverpool as the keenest in the north, leading to the two biggest grudge matches of the season, yet it has not always been that way. Before Liverpool rose to prominence in the 70s and 80s, setting a target of league titles that it has been Ferguson’s proud achievement to reel in, the two Uniteds were the cocks of the north, the Lancashire-Yorkshire boundary the most conspicuous frontline in football outside derbies between teams from the same city.

For a while, as Leeds emerged as a force under Don Revie, the Yorkshire team even held the upper hand. Manchester United had the glamour, the Best-Law-Charlton trinity and the tragic romance that held everyone’s attention in the 10 years that spanned the Munich disaster and Matt Busby’s European Cup triumph in 1968, but as the 60s turned into the 70s it was Leeds who were winning matches. Damned United or not, Revie built an immensely strong side and, between winning the league in 1969 and 1974, Leeds were runners-up three years on the trot, a notable level of consistency in an era when honours tended not to be monopolised by the same two or three clubs. Liverpool had six seasons without a trophy until Bill Shankly’s second great side won the league and the Uefa Cup in 1973. Manchester United fared even worse after 1968, famously enduring a season in the Second Division as Leeds lost Revie, then Brian Clough, and went all the way to a notorious European Cup final in 1975.

Joe Jordan, one of a number of leading players to have appeared for both clubs, remembers being captivated while still a young player in Scotland by the grim but compelling drama the two Uniteds produced in the twice replayed 1970 FA Cup semi-final. Goalless draws at Hillsborough and Villa Park were followed by another tense game at Burnden Park, Bolton, where Billy Bremner scored the only goal to take Leeds to the final, itself replayed, against Chelsea. “They were just epic encounters,” Jordan says. “Meetings between the two clubs were always the big clashes, but the 1970 games were enthralling.” Everyone of a certain age remembers the equally gripping final that year, in no small part due to its undiluted savagery, yet it is important to remember also that in 1970 Chelsea and Leeds were still arriving on football’s main stage – neither had ever won the FA Cup.

There were other ways to measure success, however, and Gordon McQueen remembers being impressed – how could he not be? – when walking into the Leeds dressing room as a teenager down from St Mirren in 1973. “There was Jack Charlton, a World Cup winner with England, Johnny Giles, the captain of Ireland, and Billy Bremner, the Scottish captain,” he recalls. “Leeds were a huge team at the time, some of their players were like legends.”

For all that, the magic formula was lost when Revie left to manage England in 1974, despite Clough being shown the door in 44 days and Jimmy Armfield’s initial success in steering Leeds to a European Cup final. “Everything started to fall apart when Revie left,” McQueen says. “I enjoyed playing under Clough but I’m not sure he was the right man for the job, and nothing was quite the same after that.” McQueen joined Manchester United in 1978, managing to inflame an awkward situation even more by declaring there was no one bigger. “Ninety nine per cent of footballers want to play for Manchester United,” he said, quite memorably. “The rest are liars.”

To no one’s great surprise the switches of allegiance by Jordan and McQueen did not go down well in Yorkshire, even though it says much about the relative innocence of the age that both continued to live in the Leeds area for six months while playing on the other side of the Pennines. “What we had to put up with was a lot worse than anything that happened to Eric Cantona, Rio Ferdinand or Alan Smith,” McQueen says. “We couldn’t go outside without ^­ getting abuse.” That was because Manchester United were beginning to grow strong again by 1978, while Leeds fans had the uneasy but accurate suspicion that selling two of their best players to rivals meant they were entering a period of decline. So it proved, and Leeds spent most of the 80s in the Second Division, before winning the last of the old-style league titles under Howard Wilkinson in 1992.

They were slightly lucky to do so, given that Ferguson’s Manchester United blew up in the final furlong, yet one wonders what might have happened had Wilkinson not made such a gift of Cantona to the Old Trafford cause the following season. The Frenchman had played his part in securing the title for Leeds, though Wilkinson’s failure to see his true worth or potential was just about the end of him as a manager and the beginning of Ferguson’s pomp.

The present Manchester United manager has no hesitation in describing Cantona as one of his best signings and the catalyst for all his side’s subsequent achievements, and it remains odd that Old Trafford’s 26 barren years were brought to a close by a player deemed surplus to requirements not only by historic rivals but by the previous season’s champions. Yet trans-Pennine business has always gone on. Gordon Strachan was part of Leeds’s’ title success, after all, and among players in recent decades to have appeared for both sides are Andy Ritchie, Denis Irwin, Lee Sharpe and the aforementioned Smith and Ferdinand.

“It’s a funny sort of rivalry,” says Lou Macari, who never played for Leeds but joined Manchester United from Celtic when Revie’s side were at their peak in 1973. “These aren’t teams from the same city, not even the same county, yet geographically they are quite close and the rivalry used to be fierce. When I first came to Manchester the derby game was against City, and that was the first fixture everyone would look out for. The toughest game of the season was always against Leeds, and that would be the second.

“Matches against Leeds were always battles, really big games, but that wasn’t through Lancashire-Yorkshire rivalry. It was because Leeds were so good. They had a great side, some really big name players. I can still list them all. They always gave you a game and to be honest they often got the better of us. I can remember playing them in the semi-final the year we won the FA Cup against Liverpool, and what a tough match it was. I looked at the present Leeds teamsheet the other day and it hit me that I hardly knew any of the names. I’m not saying they aren’t any good, just that things have changed a lot since my playing days. I imagine that if Manchester United put out a full strength side in the Cup tie it will be a mismatch. I’m still going to be there, though. I wouldn’t miss it for anything.”

AS United and Leeds prepare to clash in the FA Cup, Stuart Mathieson takes a look back at an epic semi-final saga between the two footballing giants.

SIR Alex Ferguson is ready to pounce for Karim Benzema - six months after being snubbed by the French international.


The United boss has been alerted by Benzema’s failure to make an impact at Real Madrid and is ready to offer him an escape route to Old Trafford.

One of boxing’s most captivating rivalries reached a crescendo at Old Trafford.

Get Betfair’s odds for the Reds beating Leeds - and going all the way in the Cup.

Some old rivals mourn the absence of the Elland Road side while others are happy for their top-fight exile to continue

Arsenal

Sammy Mooner, The Gooner

Yes. But in the way that you miss a raging toothache after you’ve seen the dentist. Leeds are regarded as such a has-been club that we still think of them in terms of the noxious Billy Bremner and the detestable Don Revie. That said, my current abiding memory of Leeds is asking Alan Smith what the score was as we thrashed them 4-1 for a second time in 2003-04 at Elland Road. Their tip of a ground did little to enhance the Premier League and their notorious fans even less, so let the lower leagues keep them.

Chelsea

Peter Sampson, CFCnet.co.uk

I’m not convinced that many Chelsea supporters are sad at the demise of Leeds over the last few seasons. From time to time they do pop up on the radar and it’s embedded in Chelsea fans over the age of 40 not to wish them well in play-offs or when they draw a Premier League side in the cups. However, I do miss the lively encounters against them. Chelsea versus Leeds was always a fixture to look forward to. Elland Road was, and still is, the most hostile place outside of London for Chelsea supporters and boy did we enjoy it! I don’t think we’ll be enjoying it for a few more years, though. They seem to be quite happy where they are, bless ‘em.

Liverpool

John Pearman, Red All Over The Land

Yes, we do. Liverpool and Leeds shared a few battles in the 60s and 70s and there was the unbreakable link between Bill Shankly and Revie. If you were a football fan back then, you didn’t have to like Bremner and co to appreciate what they’d achieved. There’s a common bond between the fans of Leeds and Liverpool – it could be a dislike of Manchester United, I’m not sure. The thing I miss about them is that Elland Road, like Anfield, retained a lot of its atmosphere when they put the seats in and you can sense even now (we were there for a League Cup game earlier in the season) the passion they have for their club. Naturally I hope they beat Manchester United and I for one hope to see them back in the top flight very soon.

Manchester United

Pete Boyle, Red Issue

I remember going to Hillsborough for the 1977 FA Cup semi-final as a buck-toothed seven-year-old and realising first-hand that the fans of each club were not too fond of the other lot. It’s well-documented that the followers of Leeds have always been the most consistent and vociferous with songs and taunts regarding the Munich air crash, so do any Manchester United fans actually miss them? Well, I think many of us do. I miss the nervous tension as the coach pulls off the motorway and the taunts and threats start. I miss the adrenaline pumping as police pushing the screaming hordes away from each other on the hazardous escort to the ground. I don’t obviously miss all the nasty unwarranted violence but overall football needs some proper pumped up traditional rivalries. I long for the days when the fixture list comes out and a visit to Elland Road is on there again.

As my team prepare to face their fiercest foes once again, memories flood back of a feud that became poisonous

In 1994, on the death of Sir Matt Busby, a minute’s silence was held, and impeccably observed, at almost every ground. But not at Ewood Park. There, hundreds of Leeds United fans disrupted the tribute to the former Manchester United manager by chanting: “There’s only one Don Revie.”

Only four years had passed since Italia 90, when Paul Gascoigne and Luciano Pavarotti made watching the game respectable again. No one wanted to be reminded of the tribal loathing that had turned the game in the 1980s into a form of social leprosy.

The condemnation was stringent and widespread. The club itself was hugely embarrassed and the manager, Howard Wilkinson, declared himself “numb”. The perpetrators, he said, were “out of touch with the rest of football”. The chairman, Leslie Silver, vowed to ban them for life and Revie’s widow, Elsie, said her husband would have been “horrified” by the fans’ behaviour had he still been alive.

Those fans deserved their comeuppance, and not only because of their lack of respect for Busby. Revie’s name was dragged through the mud, along with that of Leeds. But much of the criticism was disingenuous. No one who truly understood what it had meant to be a Leeds supporter over the age of 30 should have been remotely surprised by the episode.

For once, however, what was chanted was not about Leeds’ then three-decade long poisonous mutual animosity with Manchester United. Not really, anyway. It was a protest about the lack of official recognition afforded Revie at the time of his death on the day Michael Thomas won the title for Arsenal at Anfield in 1989 and the disparity between the universal praise bestowed on Busby and the vilification that dogged the former Leeds and England manager in retirement that had even manifested itself in the liberal employment of snide remarks in his obituaries.

But it was easier to fall back on the old clichés when reporting the incident: Leeds fans were beyond the pale and had displayed the inferiority complex we suffer towards Manchester United with a reprehensible outburst that offended just about everyone. In fact, however notorious it became, it was the one incident notionally directed by supporters of one of the two clubs at the other since the rivalry began in the mid-60s that was not wholly inspired by spite.

Some amateur anthropologists have claimed the antagonism dates back to some visceral remnant of the Wars of the Roses, but a more accurate assessment would locate the origins of this relatively modern football feud to on-field events in the spring of 1965. With both sides going for the Double, they played an FA Cup semi-final at Hillsborough that turned into a ragged, violent draw. Nobby Stiles’s early dreadful tackle on Leeds’ left-winger Albert Johanneson set the tone for a game which quickly degenerated into a series of skirmishes on and off the ball between Jack Charlton and Denis Law, and Billy Bremner and Pat Crerand.

The ill feeling spread to the terraces and scuffles, fights and assaults were reported by the city constabularies of Sheffield and Nottingham after that game and the replay four days later at the City Ground, which Leeds won with Billy Bremner’s 89th-minute goal. Manchester United, though, had the last laugh, pipping Leeds to the title on goal average while Revie’s team, in their first season after promotion, were runners-up in League and Cup.

Up until Manchester United were relegated in 1974, as Leeds enjoyed the upper hand on the pitch with only three defeats in 25 games, trouble between the supporters escalated; it then took a more vicious turn still after the Reds’ year of mayhem in the Second Division. It was in their first season back that I went to my first game at Elland Road between the two and the atmosphere was febrile with menace and the most exciting I have ever witnessed.

The transfers from Leeds of Joe Jordan and Gordon McQueen in 1978 made matters worse and the games until we went down in 1982 were defined by violence and “Judas” taunts. Up to 1992 the transfers from Old Trafford to Elland Road – Johnny Giles and Gordon Strachan – had been more effective than the ones going the other way. But then there was Eric Cantona, who had become an adored talisman as his irresistible cameos restored the fans’ belief that we could really beat Manchester United to the First Division championship in 1992.

Only months after delighting at the profound misery etched on Alex Ferguson’s face as he conceded the title, pretty gracelessly, at Anfield we sold him the Frenchman for next to nothing. They immediately won their first title for 26 years and established a domestic hegemony that endures to this day.

The hostility directed at Cantona on his returns to Elland Road was palpable. A friend’s father, who had the season ticket next to me, said during one of those games with dismay: “This isn’t rivalry. It’s hatred.” He was spot-on. A taunting poster erected by Nike on Elland Road during Euro 96 – “1966 was a great year for football. Eric was born” – hardly helped matters.

Some of it is fairly anodyne – they accuse us of enjoying intimate relationships with sheep, we counter by alleging that they come from Godalming. The term “scum” is applied to each other by both and indeed, six years after we were relegated and effectively become irrelevant, a match at Old Trafford rarely goes by without the mass singing of “we all hate Leeds scum”.

Battle recommences tomorrow for the first time since Alan Smith scored an equaliser for us there in 2004 – and the first time since the habitual Leeds badge-kisser went back on his pledge “never to sign for them” and high-tailed it over the Pennines.

We haven’t won at Old Trafford since 1981, a 28-year gap that has been a weight on Leeds’ supporters shoulders. In some ways the game is a twitch on the thread, a memory of what it used to be like and a chance to rekindle the days when we took them on as equals. For once, however, after Simon Grayson’s skilful rejuvenation of a moribund club and with everyone focused on promotion from the purgatory of three years in League One, we are rather more preoccupied with getting a bigger monkey off our backs.

• Manager to tell players to avoid flashpoints on the pitch
• Ferguson says match will be a ‘fantastic, feisty occasion’

Sir Alex Ferguson will instruct his Manchester United players to avoid becoming embroiled in flashpoints and “behave themselves” on the pitch when they renew hostilities with Leeds United in the third round of the FA Cup at Old Trafford.

The game has a long history of trouble between the rival sets of supporters and Ferguson will remind his team that Greater Manchester police have deemed it a high-risk occasion and that they should not do anything to stoke the feelings unnecessarily.

“I don’t have to spell out what Leeds have meant to Manchester United over the years,” the United manager said. “It will be a fantastic, feisty occasion, just like every time we have met, but it has always carried a degree of hostility which has meant we have to tell the players to behave themselves on the pitch because there is no need to add to the problems off the pitch. Leeds are bringing 8,000 fans and it is going to be a busy day for the police but it will be a brilliant atmosphere.”

Ferguson has vivid memories of the way the rivalry between the two clubs can spill over, and particularly remembers Eric Harrison, a member of his backroom staff, being attacked during a pitch invasion at Elland Road one year, and tea was thrown at members of the Old Trafford board, hitting Sir Bobby Charlton’s wife, in the directors’ box.

Another time, Ferguson went to watch a match at Leeds and got stuck at traffic lights outside the ground. He tells the story of “this bunch of supporters, skinheads, 20 or 30 of them, see me and go ‘Ferguson!’ and start running across the road. The lights are still red, I’m almost shitting myself, they’re getting nearer, then the light goes to amber and [impersonation of a tyre-squeal] I’m away.”

Nonetheless, there is something about the tribal nature of these fixtures that appeals to Ferguson’s competitive spirit. “I used to enjoy the games, we had some great games over there. The atmosphere was always electric at Leeds and our record was pretty good there too. We only lost once at Elland Road and you had to perform there.”

This is the first time the clubs have come up against one another since Leeds were relegated from the Premier League in 2004. “The first problem with Leeds was financial because they had to sell their best players,” Ferguson said.

“That’s what happens if you are financially strained and, if you sell your best players, you can bet your life that the results will change, too. But I don’t think they will be too far away from the Premier League in the next couple of years. They look to be an absolute certainty for the Championship [Leeds are top of League One] and they have a great chance of being in the Premier League in the next couple of years.”

The first leg of United’s Carling Cup semi-final against Manchester City at Eastlands is on Wednesday but Ferguson said that would not come prominently into his thinking when naming his side to face Leeds.

Gary Neville and Paul Scholes are both in line to be recalled after recovering from respective injuries, and Ferguson then intends to use the younger members of his squad against City. “I will stick with the principle of picking young players on Wednesday,” he said. “That is what we have done in the Carling Cup and we are not changing that.”

SIR Alex Ferguson expects Leeds United to be back in the Premier League within a couple of years.


Leeds head to Old Trafford for the first time since 2004 tomorrow, eagerly looking forward to the chance to show what improvement has been made under Simon Grayson.

The United boss anticipates a ‘feisty’ cup encounter on Sunday.

• Fletcher pleased Wes Brown and Nemanja Vidic are back
• ‘It was important we got them fit because they are class’

Darren Fletcher is happy to help out anywhere in the Manchester United cause – but the Scotland captain is hugely relieved the Premier League champions are starting to get some defenders back.

With up to eight men injured at times over the past six weeks, Fletcher was one of the players Sir Alex Ferguson called on to help ease United through the crisis. An appearance at right-back was not entirely unusual given Fletcher did the job for a short while. But when it came to occupying one of the positions in a three-man defence that also included Michael Carrick and the rookie Ritchie De Laet at Fulham, Fletcher’s lack of experience was exposed – the 3-0 defeat that day severely denting United’s title hopes.

However, Wes Brown and Nemanja Vidic both returned to action at Hull on 27 December and again against Wigan on Wednesday and the impact was immediate. Successive wins have cut Chelsea’s lead at the top of the table to two points, slashed the London club’s goal difference advantage by seven and restored a feeling of optimism to Old Trafford.

“I am glad the defenders are back,” said Fletcher. “We were desperate for that. It is OK in one-off games to have midfielders playing out of position. When it goes to a run of four or five games it is inevitable that mistakes are going to happen because it is not natural.”

Although the defeat at Craven Cottage was damaging, Fletcher believes the makeshift backline was at the root of United’s struggles. “It is not as if we are doing it in training or in the Sunday League,” he said. “You are talking about Premier League and Champions League matches and you are in a position you have never played in during your entire life. It is very difficult.

“We went to Fulham with basically just one defender fit in Patrice [Evra]. It was important for the team that we got our defenders back fit because they are top-class.”

While Fletcher will still be on standby to fill in for another couple of weeks, once Jonny Evans and Rio Ferdinand return to duty he should be free to concentrate on his midfield exploits. For now, though, he is concentrating on his first Old Trafford meeting with Leeds.

The Yorkshire club have always shared a fierce rivalry with their traditional Roses rivals and with 9,000 fans accompanying them across the M62, it promises to be a heated occasion, on and off the field. After that United face Manchester City in the Carling Cup before the Premier League battle resumes again at Birmingham on 9 January.

“Everyone looks ahead and speaks about the Christmas period but the matches we are into now straight afterwards are just as important,” said Fletcher. “I just take each game as it comes and think all the other players do the same thing.

“You can look too far ahead of yourself and start thinking about what is to come whether you have an easy run of games. But it never works out like that. We have the FA Cup, the Carling Cup semi-final and then more important league games. The best thing to do is try to win them all.”

Leeds striker Robert Snodgrass says he and his team-mates will not be overawed when they face fierce rivals Manchester United in the FA Cup at Old Trafford.

SIR Alex Ferguson has ruled out the possibility of making major additions to his Manchester United squad during the January transfer window.


At the depth of his defensive injury crisis, it seemed inevitable Ferguson would bring in new faces.

SIR Alex Ferguson is determined to stick with his youngsters for next Wednesday’s Carling Cup semi-final against Manchester City.


The United manager has used the competition to give the less experienced members of his squad some much-needed experience in recent years and that trend has continued this term.

SIR Alex Ferguson insists he will never be short of challenges at Manchester United.


The Scot celebrated his 68th birthday, having completed an incredible 23 years in the Old Trafford hotseat.

DARREN Fletcher is happy to help out anywhere in the United cause - but the Scotland star is hugely relieved they are starting to get some defenders back.


With up to eight men injured at times over the past six weeks, Fletcher was one of the men Sir Alex Ferguson called on to help ease United through the crisis.

League One leaders Leeds United cause the biggest shock of the FA Cup third round by beating Manchester United 1-0 at Old Trafford.

Ji-sung feels United have a great chance to be champions once again in 2010.

Big party last night? It was nothing compared to the OT revelry in 1993.

• Manchester United take on rivals City in Carling Cup semi-final
• Michael Carrick relishing prospect of FA Cup tie against Leeds

Sir Alex Ferguson will continue with his policy of selecting youngsters for Wednesday’s Carling Cup semi-final against Manchester City. The Manchester United manager has used the competition to give the less experienced members of his squad an opportunity to impress in recent years and that trend has continued this term.

Yet, a draw which pitches United into direct confrontation with a club whose 33 years without a trophy is immortalised on the Stretford End with a banner that records each passing barren season, might have prompted a change of heart.

Most United fans would accept losing to either Blackburn or Aston Villa at Wembley on 28 February if it meant City being denied a big day out, but Ferguson refuses to be deflected from his original aim, so the likes of Darron Gibson and Danny Welbeck can expect to start at Eastlands.

“I will stick with the principle of picking young players on Wednesday,” said Ferguson. “That is what we have done in the Carling Cup and we are not changing that.”

The stance is bad news for Leeds United, who head over the Pennines on Sunday to face United for the first time since 2004 knowing the champions will unleash all their big guns on them in the FA Cup. It will not prevent 9,000 travelling fans helping to create a white-hot atmosphere that will be a new experience for Michael Carrick, who cannot wait.

“Experiencing those types of feisty atmospheres are why you play football,” he said. “Rivalries like that add extra spice. It is great for the fans and good for the players.

“No matter where you play, or whether the atmosphere is for or against you, it is a great feeling to play. Besiktas was very hostile when we went there earlier this season but it was still terrific to play in. Leeds are bringing a lot of fans and we are looking forward to it. It should be a cracking game.”

The return of Gary Neville and Paul Scholes is anticipated against the Elland Road club, although one man who definitely will not be involved is John O’Shea, who could be out of action for another two months with a thigh injury sustained during the Republic of Ireland’s dramatic World Cup exit in France six weeks ago.

• Manchester United defender three weeks off full training
• Jonny Evans should be available again in 10 days

Sir Alex Ferguson has described Rio Ferdinand as “nowhere near” returning to full training despite some encouraging steps in his rehabilitation from recurrent back trouble. United’s medical staff believe Ferdinand could miss another three weeks because of the problem that badly affected his form earlier in the season and has meant him being unavailable since a particularly difficult afternoon against Fernando Torres when Ferguson’s men lost 2-0 at Liverpool on 25 October.

Nemanja Vidic and Wes Brown are United’s only fit centre-halves and Ferguson reported that John O’Shea will miss another two months because of a thigh injury. Jonny Evans, who has been troubled by a calf problem, is expected to be available again in 10 days, and is currently taking part in a running programme with Ferdinand without being able to take part fully in training.

“Rio has done well in the last few days,” Ferguson said. “Jonny has done more, of course, because he has been doing it for longer. He has been involved in the football side for a few days now, but Rio is nowhere near that. The thing is there has been no recurrence of the back problem, which is good news. I think that is the moment we have been waiting for. He has his programme in the gymnasium and at the moment it is looking healthy.”

O’Shea has not played since the 1-0 defeat at Chelsea on 8 November. “There is no sign at all of recovery from him,” Ferguson added. “The one who is long term is John O’Shea. It is his first injury at the club and it is a big loss to us because he is such a versatile performer. All we can say to him is to get back, but it will be a couple of months yet. He had a thigh injury but the blood congealed and you have to be careful of calcification. That is the reason for the delay.”

The 5-0 defeat of Wigan Athletic on Wednesday lifted United to within two points of Chelsea at the top of the Premier League. “We’re where I’d hoped we’d be at this stage of the season but you have to respect the fact that Chelsea have won games also,” Ferguson said. “The second half of the season doesn’t hold any fears for us because we have the squad and we will have players available again and I will have the defenders back. Everyone should be back for when the Champions League gets underway again and I have confidence we can handle what is coming at us in the next few months.

“Gary Neville was on the bench [against Wigan] and I may involve him on Sunday [against Leeds United in the FA Cup third round]. Paul Scholes will also be available and we should have a strong squad. Daniel Welbeck came on [against Wigan] and did very well. Rafael [da Silva] was outstanding; he showed fantastic energy and desire to win the game.”

However, Federico Macheda is injured and will not be available for Sunday or, more pertinently, the first leg of the Carling Cup semi-final against Manchester City next Wednesday. His absence means Ferguson will almost certainly play Michael Owen in an otherwise experimental side.Ends

Tickets available for the re-arranged second leg at Old Trafford…

MICHAEL Carrick cannot wait for his first experience of a War of the Roses.


Manchester United encounters with Leeds have been missing from the fixture list since 2004, when the Elland Road outfit were relegated following the catastrophic financial problems incurred when they “chased the dream” of establishing themselves among England’s elite.

Info and advice from Greater Manchester Police ahead of Sunday’s tie with Leeds.

Barcelona, Brazil and Zinedine Zidane provide the memorable moments as Alex Ferguson and Arsène Wenger continue to shape the domestic game

How it changed for the better The quality of club football at the very top level can never have been higher, even if the standard is just starting to dip a little. Considering the expense incurred in luring outstanding footballers from all over the world the owners were entitled to accept nothing less. Arsène Wenger also showed what a cosmopolitan approach can achieve even with a comparatively restricted budget.

How it changed for the worse Stadiums and teams, by and large, have been upgraded, but the cost of attending is often excruciating for Premier League fans. There is little diversity to the competition. Only four clubs have won the Premier League so far and Blackburn will not be expecting to repeat their feat.

Decade’s top five

1 Barcelona Pep Guardiola’s side is not packed with goliaths, so it was a joy to see that sheer perfection of movement and passing technique could leave even Manchester United powerless to get to grips with them as Barcelona took the Champions League for a second time this decade in 2009.

2 Spain Though there is an overlap in personnel and style with Barcelona, the Euro 2008 champions differed markedly and had to develop over the course of a tournament that culminated in a polished victory over Germany when they were without the injured David Villa.

3 Arsenal It would have been uncanny to witness any side go through the League programme unbeaten, but Wenger’s line-up were all the more remarkable because the durability rested on style as much as steel in the 2003-04 campaign.

4 Manchester United There could hardly have been a greater challenge to a manager but Sir Alex Ferguson, in his mid-sixties, regrouped to shape a side that quelled Chelsea and has now brought three titles in a row and the 2008 Champions League to Old Trafford.

5 Brazil They are as capable of winning ugly as playing the beautiful game. In 2002, the side took the first World Cup to be held in Asia and adaptable Brazil will be favourites to regain the trophy when the tournament comes to Africa.

Match of the decade It may have been the strangest match on a major occasion rather than the greatest, but the 2005 Champions League final was unique. Milan generally looked superior, apart from the six-minute spell in which Liverpool scored three times to pull level. Jerzy Dudek still had to pull off an astonishing double save from Andriy Shevchenko to help Liverpool to a shoot-out in which he settled the final by blocking the Ukrainian’s kick.

Most memorable moment The spectacle of Zinedine Zidane contorting himself to meet an awkwardly dropping ball from Roberto Carlos and score the winner against Bayer Leverkusen with a supreme volley in the 2002 Champions League final.

2020 vision It’s more of a wish than a prophecy, but it would be heartening if owners became more subdued after the global recession and tired of throwing away their fortunes. Outcomes then would not seem quite so dependent on, as Wenger termed it, “financial doping”.

SIR Alex Ferguson has revealed that John O’Shea might be sidelined for two more months.


The Manchester United utility man picked up a thigh injury during the Republic of Ireland’s shattering World Cup exit in France last month that Ferguson initially felt was nothing more than a dead leg.

• ‘No sign of recovery’ for Irish international
• Rio Ferdinand and Jonny Evans close to return

Sir Alex Ferguson fears John O’Shea could be sidelined for two more months. O’Shea was injured during Ireland’s controversial World Cup play-off defeat to France in November and has not played since.

“There is no sign at all of recovery for John,” said Ferguson. “It is his first injury at the club and he is a big loss because he is such a versatile player. We just want to get him back but it could be a couple of months yet.”

United’s defence has been cursed by injury over recent months and the likes of Darren Fletcher and Michael Carrick have been forced to help out, one of the major reasons why United lost twice in three games to put their Premier League title hopes in jeopardy.

The joint return of Nemanja Vidic and Wes Brown has coincided with a two-match winning run over Christmas that yielded eight goals, five of them coming against Wigan at Old Trafford last night.

Vidic and Brown will continue to shoulder the burden for now but Ferguson is optimistic Evans will return to duty in the next 10 days, with Ferdinand not too far behind after United finally got to the root of a back problem that has plagued the England defender for 18 months.

“Jonny has been involved in the football side for a few days,” said Ferguson, who is celebrating his 68th birthday today. “He is doing well and should be back quicker, within the next 10 days or so.

“Rio is nowhere near that but the main thing is there is no recurrence of the back problem. That is what we have been waiting for. We wanted him to come through the test of running and turning. He is doing his programme in the gymnasium, which is good and at the moment it is looking very healthy.”

John O’Shea is no nearer to a return from a thigh problem.

The Cup resurrects an old rivalry with the men from across the Pennines.

Steve Bruce’s late, late goals inspired United’s first title for 26 years.

Ryan Giggs tops our list of United’s best players over the past 10 years.

David Beckham admits he almost cried when he learned of OT return.

Sir Alex feels the Reds have coped admirably with the loss of Ronaldo.

• The whole team played well, says manager
• Wayne Rooney was ‘absolutely fantastic’

Sir Alex Ferguson said he had an “uncomfortable” Christmas after two damaging defeats but he is in the right mood to celebrate his 68th birthday, and the new year, after Manchester United hit top form to demolish Wigan 5-0 and move up to within two points of Chelsea, the Premier League leaders.

The United manager believes his team are well placed to go on the sort of run which burned off all opposition after Christmas last season. They won 11 league games in succession then, to overhaul Chelsea and Liverpool, and are looking to do the same to retain their title.

Ferguson said: “I think the players realised there were goals there to be scored tonight and they took their chance. That was good because, who knows, goal difference could be important at the end of the season.”

To Wigan’s chagrin, the architect of their demoralising defeat was Antonio Valencia, the Ecuador winger they sold to United for £16m during the summer. Valencia, signed to replace Cristiano Ronaldo, unhinged his old team’s defence time and again, setting up three goals before scoring the fifth himself, and Ferguson said: “The really important thing for us is that Antonio scored another goal [his sixth of the season]. That was key for him. He’ll get a lot more.”

After praising Valencia and describing the form of Wayne Rooney, who scored his 14th goal in 19 league games, as “absolutely fantastic”, Ferguson added that he preferred not to single out individuals on this occasion. “The whole team played well”, he explained. “They all need to play their part, and at the moment they are certainly doing that. It was marvellous stuff tonight.

“Defeats against Aston Villa and Fulham gave us an uncomfortable Christmas, and five defeats in the first half of the season is already one more than we had in the whole of last season. That’s a concern, but the way the league is going it’s not fatal. I just hope that we haven’t damaged ourselves too much.

“There have been a few shock results this season that hopefully might mean the title is taken with fewer points than usual.”

Rooney, enjoying what the England striker regards as his best season, expects at least eight more goals, which would eclipse the 23 he scored in all competitions in 2006-07. “If I don’t do that, there will be something seriously wrong,” he said.

The manager said he intended to pick a “very different” team for Sunday’s FA Cup tie at home to Leeds United. “There will be a chance for a couple of the younger players, and we also have Gary Neville available. Johnny Evans is back in training and Rio Ferdinand has started and is running well. He’s not that far away.”

Match report, page 2

WAYNE Rooney gift wrapped Sir Alex Ferguson a 68th birthday present by promising to deliver his best ever goal haul for a season.


The England striker opened the scoring in a 5-0 United win against Wigan to bring his tally for the campaign to 15.