Beckham pays for his spicy lifestyle

He did not play, he did not even get stripped off and Manchester United extended their lead at the top of the Premiership to six points; but David Beckham still monopolised the agenda at Elland Road yesterday. The biggest rock star celebrity footballer since George Best trod the same Old Trafford catwalk 30 years ago, Beckham found himself watching from the sidelines yesterday after being dropped following a what is euphemistically known as a "training ground bust-up".

The alleged altercation between Beckham and his manager Alex Ferguson took place on Saturday morning and resulted in Beckham departing the training session after less than half an hour. A spokeswoman for the player tried to play down the disagreement yesterday: "There has been absolutely no bust up with Sir Alex Ferguson," she said and claimed the player had missed training on Friday because his child, Brooklyn, was ill.

The full implications of the disagreement, said to focus on Beckham's London leisure-time distractions and their effects on his timekeeping, became clear at

11 o'clock yesterday morning when Beckham's name was not even among the substitutes on the Manchester United teamsheet.

Beckham travelled to Elland Road on the team coach but sat in the stands, his peaked cap pulled tight down on his forehead. Afterwards Ferguson did his best to blunt questions about his most famous player. "I picked a team for today, that's it," Ferguson said. "Whatever we do we'll keep it inside the club." Pressed further, Ferguson said that Beckham was not going to be withdrawn from the England squad to face Argentina at Wembley on Wednesday. Ferguson did his best to undermine speculation about a change of clubs for his player by saying Beckham could be back in his line-up for Saturday's fixture at Wimbledon.

"We've got (Roy) Keane and (Paul) Scholes suspended next Saturday so he's got every chance of playing," Ferguson said. A couple more "no comments" followed before he said wearily: "You can debate it."

The debate had begun already. When the Manchester United bus pulled into Elland Road yesterday morning the squad was met by the chant of: "Where's your Beckham gone?" The news was out and the ears of managers and chairmen across Europe will have been twitching at that.

Fuelled by his wife's fondness for media saturation - at various stages Posh Spice has mentioned London, Italy and Spain as future locations to live - Beckham has been linked with Barcelona, AC Milan and Arsenal.

Stories of a move to other clubs emanate from spats between Ferguson and his 24-year-old star. One stand-up row, on the way back from the Intercontinental Cup in Tokyo in December, centred on Beckham's desire to have joined the outward journey in London. His Hertfordshire mansion is closer to the capital than Manchester. Eventually Beckham was told to go to Manchester.

Whether he would ever be told to leave Manchester is another matter but the history of Ferguson and players he considers unsettling suggests the proletarian dictator of Old Trafford will win. In their time Norman Whiteside, Paul McGrath, Paul Ince and Lee Sharpe all crossed Ferguson. All left the club shortly afterwards.

Yesterday, Ferguson's remaining players ploughed on in their remorseless manner regardless. Ultimately Andy Cole's 52nd-minute cool finish separated two well-matched sides but Leeds were unlucky, hitting the crossbar twice and a post once. Leeds's overall pattern was unusually patchwork, though. "There was nothing in it," said O'Leary with some justification, "they took their chance, we didn't."

After the past week's avalanche of bad publicity generated by apparently anarchic players, the game was remarkably calm. The tension which always accompanies this match like a bad smell never threatened to overshadow the occasion.

The dropping of David Beckham did that job.