League blessed with two Uniteds

Should anyone beyond the monocular world of the football fan seriously believe that there is only one United, Saturday's excellent contest at Old Trafford suggested that two of the breed will add a distinction to this season's championship which has been missing of late.

In drawing 1-1, and having each made a strong case for victory, the Uniteds of Manchester and Leeds offered the prospect of a return to the days of heavy drama when the teams of Matt Busby, Don Revie and Liverpool's Bill Shankly made the earth move on a regular basis.

With Liverpool and Arsenal (Manchester United's next Premiership opponents away from home) just as likely to stay the distance, it would seem that this time football's heavyweight division is not going to become an Old Trafford bum-of-the-week competition. Add in Aston Villa's steely progress to the top of the table and Alex Ferguson's thought that "there might be five or six teams involved during April", looks something more than post-match chit-chat.

Certainly Saturday's game demonstrated that, once teams have escaped from the autumn distractions of the Champions League, the domestic product can still enthral at a high-technical level. The match not only wetted the taste buds for Manchester United's imminent visits to Anfield and Highbury, it promised more of the same once the European competitions have retired for the winter.

David O'Leary's Leeds are the form team at the moment and have been since January, when a 3-1 home defeat by Newcastle found them in 12th with apparently little to play for except fixture-fulfilment. Now Leeds have been beaten only once in 26 league matches, and this season, in addition to a victory at Arsenal, have left both Liverpool and Manchester annoyed with themselves for drawing games they felt they should have won.

That Leeds did not win at Old Trafford for the first time in 20 years was due primarily to the lucky Norwegian rabbit's foot without which Alex Ferguson would still be a plain "Mr". The goal Ole Gunnar Solskjaer scored against Bayern Munich in stoppage time to win the 1999 European Cup final brought Ferguson his knighthood, and at this rate an earldom cannot be far away.

Last Tuesday Manchester United were scoreless and increasingly clueless against Olympiakos until Solskjaer came off the bench to score. On Saturday some exceptional attacking football had been thwarted by a combination of Nigel Martyn's goalkeeping heroics, outstanding performances from O'Leary's centre-backs, Rio Ferdinand and Dominic Matteo, and a post struck by David Beckham before the Norseman cameth.

Ferguson put the frequency with which Solskjaer scores as a substitute down to his concentration on the game as a spectator. "He watches games so intensely that once he is on he has a good idea of what might happen," the United manager explained.

Good for Solskjaer, although if he had worked out that with Leeds leading and a minute plus stoppage time to go he would score with a far-post header, then he is clearly wasting his time as a footballer. A stockbroking career in futures might be even more lucrative.

Not that it needed a genius to work out that once Leeds were asked to cope with two strikers instead of one they would be more likely to concede a goal.

Leeds might still have won had they not, in their manager's words, "kept sitting, sitting back, inviting trouble". O'Leary sensed that once Mark Viduka had given his side the lead in the 77th minute, the champions "were there for the taking".

At that stage it would have been hard to dispute this. Manchester United seemed to have exhausted their attacking ideas in the first 25 minutes, which began with Martyn turning aside a free-kick from David Beckham and saw Leeds come under steady pressure thereafter.

The two chances which Viduka squandered around the half-hour at least reminded Old Trafford that the opposition had an attack of their own, and when Robbie Keane stayed on the pitch after a petulant assault on Beckham Leeds probably felt luck was on their side.

So it proved. Viduka the palooka became an astute predator as he turned in Ian Harte's low cross, but the Australian striker had still scored from an offside position.

Enter Solskjaer. Beckham collected the Norwegian's throw before seeing his centre nodded out obliquely by Matteo to Giggs, whose nicely flighted cross was headed past Martyn with a convincing Norwegian impersonation of Tommy Lawton.

But for Martyn keeping out a ricochet off Matteo and then turning wide a goal-bound header from Ruud van Nistelrooy, Manchester United would have grabbed another of their unlikely victories. That would have brought Old Trafford much joy - but not much justice to Leeds.

MAN UTD: Barthez, Gary Neville, Blanc, Brown, Silvestre, Beckham, Veron, Butt (Solskjaer 75), Giggs, Scholes, van Nistelrooy. Subs Not Used: Carroll, Phil Neville, Yorke, Chadwick. Booked: Scholes, Beckham, Butt. Goals: Solskjaer 89.

LEEDS: Martyn, Mills, Ferdinand, Matteo, Harte, Bowyer, Bakke, Dacourt, Kewell (Smith 90), Keane (Batty 71), Viduka. Subs Not Used: Woodgate, Robinson, Johnson. Booked: Bakke, Keane, Kewell. Goals: Viduka 77.

Referee: D Gallagher (Banbury).