Manchester United further cemented their place in the top four today after they secured a hard-fought 2-0 win over Leeds United at Elland Road.
Just like in Wednesday’s match between these two great rivals Leeds flew out of the blocks and almost took an early lead once again but Dutch attacker Crysencio Summerville fired over from inside the six-yard box.
Manchester United struggled to find any fluency in their play although they were handed a golden chance to open the scoring on the stroke of half-time. Bruno Fernandes pounced on a loose pass from Leeds defender Max Wober, however, after finding himself one-on-one the Portuguese playmaker was denied by a fine save from Illan Meslier.
Just after the hour mark United full-back Diogo Dalot came within a whisker of putting his side ahead when he hammered a shot off the crossbar from the edge of the area.
Summerville went close again on 77 minutes when he forced David de Gea into a decent stop with a low shot from a tight angle.
Just three minutes later Man United finally clicked in the final third and broke the hearts of the raucous Elland Road crowd. January signing Marcel Sabitzer spread the play out left to Luke Shaw and on-fire attacker Marcus Rashford headed home the left-backs tempting cross.
Substitute Alejandro Garnacho then killed off any hopes Leeds had of staging a comeback when the 18-year-old raced through on goal and fired a clinical finish past Meslier.
Alejandro Garnacho shushed the Leeds fans after his goal 🤫 pic.twitter.com/Uh50NabAUk
— B/R Football (@brfootball) February 12, 2023
United move up to second in the table at least temporarily – with Man City in action against Aston Villa this afternoon – and speaking afterwards skipper Harry Maguire was delighted his side sealed an important three points.
“Winning the game is the most important, I’m captain of the team and I put the team miles before myself,” Maguire told Sky Sports.
”Whether I’m playing or not I want the team to win and be successful so it’s been a good season up until now, still a lot of improvement and the big games but it’s nice to come here, get a clean sheet and a victory and it’s a good one for the fans.
“We know coming to Elland Road is going to be a tough place, there’s going to be times where they have a little bit of momentum and it came early in both halves. We had to dig in the second half as well but we focused, we knew that our quality would come through so we knew that we had to battle and fight for every ball and keep the ball out of our net.
“It’s credit to the lads and their spirit. We know how important this victory is to our fans, having not got it in the week. We were disappointed and we knew today was about revenge and we got that.”
