Elland Road was electric as Man United travelled across the Pennines to face old enemy Leeds in the early kick-off on Sunday (January 4). Unfortunately, the game didn’t quite live up to the billing.
It took until just after the hour mark for the deadlock to be broken. Brendan Aaronson sent the home fans into absolute raptures after timing his run perfectly to latch onto a lovely ball from Pascal Struijk and slot beyond Senne Lammens.
Leeds’ lead didn’t last very long though. Matheus Cunha restored parity for Ruben Amorim’s side just three minutes later, and the game ended in a relatively dull 1-1 draw. United have now climbed up to fifth, temporarily at least.
Matheus Cunha steps up when needed
Man United were without a majority of their attacking fire power for this game. Amad Diallo and Bryan Mbeumo are away at AFCON, while Bruno Fernandes and Mason Mount were both out injured.
Amorim was forced to play Patrick Dorgu as one of his tens, and with Benjamin Sesko struggling to affect the game in any meaningful way, responsibility fell on Cunha to step up and be United’s main attacking threat.
The Brazilian was a bright spark throughout the game. Cunha thought he had opened the scoring early on, but his strike was ruled out by the offside flag. He eventually got his goal; it’s just a shame it didn’t get his side all three points.
Leny Yoro struggles again
He wasn’t the one responsible for Leeds’ goal, Ayden Heaven should have done much better, but it was another disappointing performance from Yoro, who has struggled throughout the season so far.
It appears he’s going through a bit of a crisis of confidence, too often does he allow opposition attackers to run at him, giving them too much space rather than take action and try to make a tackle.
Yoro was ultimately sacrificed for Joshua Zirkzee just after Leeds scored as Amorim searched for a goal. The centre-back ended his game having made just two tackles, won one aerial duel, and was dribbled past once.
He was the most accurate passer for any outfield player that was on the pitch for 45 minutes or more. So, it’s not all negativities.
Zirkzee impresses again
For the second consecutive game, Zirkzee has outshine the man signed for £74 million to replace him. Sesko, who was once again completely anonymous for United is going to start looking over his shoulder more than he may have expected.
Zirkzee’s assist wasn’t a world beater, he left Cunha with a lot of work to do, hence why the Brazilian had to seriously stretch to get to the ball, but getting another goal contribution on that board will do wonders for his confidence.
He now has two goals and one assist having only played 465 Premier League minutes. Compare that to Sesko, who has the same in nearly double the amount of game time (950 minutes), perhaps he needs a better run of games.