premier league : Manchester United 6 – 2 Leeds United

Scott McTominay scored the earliest double in Premier League history as Manchester United earned a thrilling 6-2 victory over historic rivals Leeds United at Old Trafford. Man Utd’s biggest win of 2020/21 moves them up to third, five points behind Liverpool with a match in hand. Leeds are 14th with 17 points.

The ‘War of the Roses’ fixture had not been played in the top flight since 2004 and, with both teams preferring to attack, it was always felt that goals would be scored – yet nobody expected this stunning and unpredictable encounter.

The Scot drilled in a superb opener from Bruno Fernandes’s pass before finishing Anthony Martial’s through-ball to put Man Utd two up inside three minutes. He become the first player to score twice in this fixture in the league since Ole Gunnar Solskjaer bagged a brace at Elland Road in 2002.

Fernandes then started and finished a slick move to make it three, before Victor Lindelof made it 4-0 in the 37th minute after Martial flicked Luke Shaw’s corner into his path.

Liam Cooper pulled a goal back three minutes before the break and it took a splendid save by David De Gea in the home goal to push away Raphinha’s first-time volley on 50 minutes.

But any hopes of a fightback by Leeds were dashed on 66 minutes when McTominay turned provider for Daniel James to slot in a fifth.

Fernandes added a sixth goal from the penalty spot after Martial had been fouled, before Stuart Dallas scored a spectacular consolation for Leeds in a match featuring 43 shots.

What Next ?

United’s next Premier League match is against second-placed Leicester City on Boxing Day and a victory at the King Power Stadium would lift Solskjaer’s side up to second. Before then, however, is the Carabao Cup quarter-final at Everton on Wednesday evening.

After their biggest defeat of the season so far in the season, Leeds United will host Burnley at home on 27^th December.

Match-Stats :

Post-Match reactions :

Ole Gunnar Solskjaer, Manchester United Manager:

“The effort they put in today, the boys, all the running they had to do, the closing down, and the moving to get away from our markers, with our fans in the stadium, it would have been even easier for them. We found a way of getting them going, Just imagine if that had 75,000 people here, it would have gone down in history as one of the better Man United performances against Leeds here at home.”

Scott McTominay:

“For us, it was a good game. For me, I’m used to playing high-energy, high-tempo football matches and obviously for us, as a team, we played really well today. I thought it was well deserved, the six goals. I think everyone knows Leeds as a team, they’re an amazing team with an amazing coach, you know. I feel like the detail, on and off the ball, is high, and we know it as well. We’ve done a lot of video analysis on them as well so, for me, the manager got us to do a job today and it paid off when we got six goals.”

Victor Lindelof: 

“It gives you confidence. We’re on a good run now, we’ve been performing good on the pitch, so hopefully we can just keep on going because we know, in this period, there’s a lot of games. We have to recover well and be ready because some important games are coming up.”

Daniel James: 

“It’s always nice to score the first goal but, from then, we’ve got to go on and keep doing what we’ve been doing in training all week. We got that comfortable lead at half-time – we conceded but still had that comfortable lead. That second half was about doing exactly the same. We knew it was going to be a tough game and we did very well today.”

Marcelo Bielsa, Leeds United Manager :

“In the first half we had similar chances to the ones they had but we weren’t able to score. Our attacks came from combination play and their attacks came from the fact we were losing the ball in attacking positions, and they would transition from defence to attack. Our return was slower than their transition.”