Leeds United have a world to put right after un-Bielsa-like performance in Manchester United beating - YEP 15/8/21

Graham Smyth's Verdict

For a brief moment, all was right with Leeds United's world.

By Graham Smyth

Luke Ayling was sliding on his knees toward a sea of limbs, air guitar in hand, the net still billowing from his thunderbolt.

It was a moment that bookended the Whites' pandemic-enforced estrangement from their fans - the last time Leeds played in front of a full capacity stadium it was Ayling who crashed in a wondergoal.

He celebrated that one, the opener against Huddersfield in a 2-0 Championship win, in exactly the same way.

This time the goal brought Leeds level, against Manchester United, in a Premier League game and the 3,000 travelling Whites did their best to recreate the Elland Road roar that greeted his March 2020 effort.

The sight of the away end losing their minds was a jolt, a burst of the old normal during the time of new normal. Football that looked good and sounded right.

It was a perfect moment, one that deserved to linger for longer, one that did not deserve a subsequent context that reduced it to a mere consolation.

But before Ayling characteristically got the bit between his teeth and dragged his team back into the game, all had not been right with the world.

The goal had simply papered over cracks that Manchester United had been prodding and poking at in a difficult first half that ended 1-0 to the hosts.

And just three minutes after Ayling's perfect moment, the Red Devils scored the first of four goals that got Leeds's season off to the worst possible start. Where cracks existed, Manchester United punched gaping holes.

Speaking to the press Marcelo Bielsa was in no mood to start picking through the ruins of this defeat to find similarities with the 6-2 hammering suffered at the same venue last season, but this four-goal deficit was surely just as crushing, if not more so having taken place in front of supporters.

"The goal is to play better than we did last season and to go into every game with a chance of attempting to win," said Bielsa beforehand.

After, he posited that Manchester United's superiority showed more frequently and significantly in last season's version of the fixture than this one.

Arguing over which performance was better would be as futile an exercise as arguing Kalvin Phillips should have started instead of Robin Koch in the pivotal central defensive midfield role.

Don't forget, Phillips started at Old Trafford last season and was dragged at half-time as the Leeds midfield were overrun just as badly as they were by hat-trick man Bruno Fernandes and four-assist Paul Pogba on Saturday.

Even by cutting his post-Euros holiday to 11 days, Phillips missed much of pre-season and was evidently not fit enough to start, or Bielsa would have picked him to do the defensive job he did so well when the sides met at Elland Road in April.

He may well have fared better than Koch, who was pulled hither and thither by Fernandes and simply could not live with the Portuguese, but there is no guarantee Phillips alone would have prevented defeat against two world class creative talents in the most dangerous of moods.

The midfield duo were not alone in performing well. Left-back Luke Shaw kept Raphinha quiet and still got forward himself to give Leeds all kinds of problems. Dan James was a thorn in the visitors' side albeit incapable of doing fatal damage when he got in position to really hurt them.

Scott McTominay looked in cruise control at times, giving Mateusz Klich the slip too often, and Harry Maguire got the better of Patrick Bamford. Whether it was application or organisation or a horrible mixture of both, Leeds were chasing shadows.

All in all it was never truly uncomfortable for Manchester United and that's why it would be patronising in the extreme to this Leeds side to focus on how expensive Ole Gunnar Solskjaer's side was to assemble.

It's a consideration, of course, when you compare what it cost to put Bielsa's starting XI on the pitch, yet Leeds proved on numerous occasions last season that they could still make life unpleasant for the star-studded elite of the Premier League.

That, and the identity of the opponents, is why this performance should sting long after the natural muscle soreness of a 90 minute battle wears off.

Solskjaer was a little concerned about Leeds' intensity beforehand and even if quality had eventually told, the visitors should have justified his concerns.

Instead, he had little to worry about.

It's not that Leeds didn't run or didn't keep trying, they ran to the end, the work ethic was on display, but it was still all too easy for Manchester United. The intensity was misdirected. Few of Bielsa's men got close enough often enough to really disrupt the hosts. It was not an in-your-face performance.

There was sloppiness, too, notably from Koch and Raphinha in first half moments that could have cost Leeds.

The Whites had their moments before the break, Jack Harrison and Klich forcing saves from David De Gea, the latter in particular testing the goalkeeper.

But in a breathless first half Leeds had no control and when the opener arrived from the boot of Fernandes there was no surprise that the attack came down the middle, McTominay finding Pogba who dinked the ball over the top to create a chance that was taken expertly.

Bielsa's half-time intervention came in the form of Junior Firpo, the debutant replacing Rodrigo, allowing Dallas to move into midfield alongside Koch, with Klich pushing forward.

Then came Ayling's moment, a goal of the highest quality and the perfect start to the second half.

Parity was all too brief however and when Pogba was left in acres of space with all the time in the world to pick his pass from his own half, he sent Mason Greenwood away on a footrace with Pascal Struijk, the striker winning it to fire across Meslier and in.

Two minutes after that it was 3-1 and by the hour mark the home side had four, Fernandes getting his second and third with quality finishes from Pogba passes.

Players of such skill don't need an eternity to create havoc but it seemed like time stood still when they got the ball, such was the space they found, earned or were given.

By the time the Frenchman slotted the ball into the area for Fred's third goal in 77 Premier League outings, Ayling's moment felt a lifetime ago.

The scoreline could not silence the away fans and it will likely define nothing more than the work Bielsa puts his men through in preparation for Everton next week, but it will hurt for some time. It should do, too. There's a world to put right.