Both united, but they're not at one

Fabien Barthez's preparations for football's bigger occasions would now appear to embrace late-night tete-atetes with the beautiful people who make up the Parisian glitterati. Nice work if you can get it.

On Saturday morning, photographs of the image-conscious goalkeeper entering one of the Champs-Elysees' more exclusive nightclubs were plastered across the back pages of various publications.

"The coach lets me live how I want," he is reported to have said almost as if he wished to add credence to the cute, if somewhat improbable, theory that as Alex Ferguson nears the end of his managerial tenure at Old Trafford he is actually beginning to mellow.

But, as Eric Cantona will readily testify, Ferguson is not averse to accommodating the occasional maverick even if the ground rules state that seemingly irresponsible behaviour must never be flaunted and that performance levels when on club duty must only rarely slip below the impeccable.

Controversy will always draw tight around Barthez because he delights in poking orthodoxy in the chest. However, it must be said, he is a goalkeeper and, but for his agility and positional sense, Manchester United would certainly have been sunk at Elland Road.

Lacking Roy Keane, Ryan Giggs and Andy Cole, United, for once, were simply happy to hang on, a role they undertake with the utmost reluctance.

Leeds were at their swaggering, combative best early on, pounding away at a curiously unsure defence with a relentless intensity which few would argue did deserve some form of tangible reward.

The icing on the cake should have been added deep into stoppage time at the end of the first half when Barthez was fortunate to stay on the field after kicking out at Ian Harte.

As he attempted to reach a cross from the left, he was jostled by Harte and could do no more than paw the ball away to a position of relative safety. As Wes Brown cleared, Barthez sent Harte tumbling to the ground.

It was an act of retribution so blatant the world, his dog - and referee Graham Barber - could hardly fail to notice. Barber merely booked him. Barthez atoned by diving down to his right to brilliantly turn aside Harte's firmly-driven penalty kick.

"I don't know how the goalkeeper was on the field to save it," said David O'Leary, clearly believing Barthez should have seen red, not yellow.

In many respects it was to be the afternoon's defining moment for, thereafter, Leeds were a different team - lethargic and, like so many others before them, sucked into believing that Manchester United were unbeatable.

Even so, Leeds certainly did not deserve to lose the game - but lose it they almost did.

Midway through the second half, United's one cohesive move of the game bore fruit, the substitute Luke Chadwick tapping home from close range after Nigel Martyn had failed to gather Ole Gunnar Solskjaer's low shot.

"It was a shambles of a game at times," said Ferguson. "I honestly couldn't see them scoring after we had gone in front."

A travesty seemed highly probable until, with six minutes remaining, Mark Viduka headed home a Danny Mills cross which had been flicked on by Lee Bowyer. It was the very least Leeds deserved, but O'Leary was adamant it should have been more.

In the dying seconds Brown, stretching to halt a Bowyer cross, turned the ball beyond Barthez only to be rescued by one of Barber's assistants who decreed Viduka to be offisde.

"It was a shocking decision," said O'Leary. "Not one of the Manchester United defenders was looking for an offside decision - Wes Brown certainly wasn't."

Once he had calmed down, O'Leary was found to be grateful for small mercies, full of praise for the durability of his "babies" and, understandably, a little fearful of what awaits his side tomorrow when they travel to Spain for a spat with European champions Real Madrid.

"Today it was Manchester United - on Tuesday it is Madrid. They are possibly the best two sides in Europe. We are still learning, but when we do play the best we want to beat them," he said.

LEEDS: Martyn, Mills, Harte, Radebe, Ferdinand, Bowyer, Dacourt, Batty, Matteo (Kewell 46), Keane (Smith 46), Viduka. Subs Not Used: Kelly, Robinson, Bakke. Booked: Bowyer, Radebe, Mills. Goals: Viduka 84.

MAN UTD: Barthez, Gary Neville, Phil Neville, Brown, Stam, Beckham, Scholes, Butt (Chadwick 46), Irwin, Sheringham (Yorke 69), Solskjaer. Subs Not Used: May, Rachubka, Greening. Booked: Butt, Barthez, Solskjaer, Phil Neville, Scholes. Goals: Chadwick 64.

Referee: G Barber (Tring).