Late strikes from Marcus Rashford and Alejandro Garnacho were enough to secure Manchester United a 2-0 victory over Leeds United, inflicting a first defeat upon Leeds in the post Jesse Marsch era and ending the Red Devils’ two match winless away league run in the process.
After meeting only four days ago in a 2-2 draw at Old Trafford, this fierce footballing rivalry was renewed once again at Elland Road and it was relegation battlers Leeds who started brighter.
Crysencio Summerville can count himself slightly unlucky not to have opened the scoring within five minutes, but he blazed an effort over from inside the area with the goal at his mercy.
United were rather lacklustre in the opening 45 minutes, failing to work Illan Meslier in the Leeds goal as they were once again struggling against their bitter foes.
Leeds gifted them a route to goal on the stroke of half-time though, when Bruno Fernandes charged down Maximilian Wöber’s clearance, but as he raced clear on goal Meslier stood tall to preserve his side’s first half clean sheet.
Whatever the Leeds interim boss said at the break sent his troops out with a renewed belief they could snatch the points against an out-of-sorts United.
The unlikely source of Luke Ayling came closest to finding a Leeds breakthrough in the early stages, but his goalbound effort was deflected away to safety by Luke Shaw.
A duo of changes on the hour mark swung the game in United’s favour somewhat and only a lick of paint denied Diogo Dalot a first ever Premier League goal.
Summerville was by some distance Leeds’ brightest spark, and all his scintillating performance was missing was a goal, but De Gea was in no mood to give him that, once again denying him from a tight angle.
A goal did eventually arrive, as Leeds made the ill fated mistake of leaving the in-form Marcus Rashford unmarked in the area and he was on hand to power home Shaw’s cross and decide the game.
It was almost a sense of déjà vu for Leeds, who after conceding twice in the final half-hour at Old Trafford, slumped to the same fate here when Alejandro Garnacho broke free and fired past Meslier at his near post to place the game beyond any reasonable doubt.
Narrow offside calls denied both Wout Weghorst and Rashford and spared Leeds’ blushes, though it wasn’t enough to prevent their poor run extending to just one win from nine home league games. As for United, victory was enough to provisionally lift them into second.
