Leeds 3 Manchester Utd 1

Andy Cole

Leeds Uni­ted 3 Man­chester Uni­ted 1, El­land Road, Eng­lish Pre­mier Lea­gue, Dec­ember 24, 1995. Man­chester Uni­ted lost their fourth Pre­miership ga­me of the sea­son as they suf­fered a 3-1 loss to Leeds Uni­ted on Christ­mas Eve 1995. But des­pite los­ing ag­ainst Leeds, Al­ex Ferguson´s title con­tenders still re­mained in sec­ond po­s­i­tion in the Pre­mier Lea­gue table.

Man­chester Uni­ted entered the Christ­mas Eve fix­ture on the back of a dis­ap­point­ing 2-0 de­feat ag­ainst North West en­emies Liver­pool at An­field, where­as Nor­man Wilkinson´s Leeds Uni­ted si­de had suf­fered a dev­ast­at­ing 6-2 loss at the hands of York­shire neigh­bours Shef­field Wed­nesday at Hills­bor­ough. There was some early dra­ma at El­land Road as Man­chester Uni­ted and Eng­land U21 in­ter­na­tion­al mid­fielder Nicky Butt was pen­al­ised for hand­ling the ball by mat­ch of­fi­cial Dermot Galla­gh­er al­ready in the sixth min­ute of ac­tion. For­mer Mother­well and Lei­cester City mid­field play­maker Ga­ry Mc­Al­lister sub­sequently stepped up to the spot and con­fid­ently struck the ball pa­st Old Traf­ford goal­keeper Pe­ter Schmei­chel and in­to the top right cor­ner of the net to give The Pea­cocks a 1-0 ad­vant­age. The Man­chester Uni­ted play­ers, who were booed and jeered by the bois­ter­ous Leeds sup­port­ers every time they had the ball, push­ed for­ward in search of an equal­ising goal and were re­war­ded on the ha­lf-hour ma­rk when a mis­take by Welsh mid­fielder Ga­ry Speed al­lowed Butt to set up Andy Cole to score from clo­se ran­ge, on­ly for the hosts to re­gain their ad­vant­age thro­ugh Ghana stri­ker To­ny Ye­boah who net­ted wi­th a bril­liant chip over Schmei­chel just five min­utes la­ter. Fol­low­ing the re­start, Man­chester Uni­ted had sev­er­al chances to equal­ise for a sec­ond time, but wi­th eight­een min­utes re­maining on the watch, Leeds had their third goal of the day as Bri­an Deane head­ed ho­me a chipped ball from To­mas Brolin, ma­king the fi­nal sco­reline read 3-1 in the fa­vour of The Whi­tes. Leeds Uni­ted Te­am: Ma­rk Beeney, Garry Kel­ly, Rich­ard Job­son, Da­vid Weth­er­all, Ga­ry Speed, To­ny Dorigo, To­mas Brolin, Ga­ry Mc­Al­lister, Carlton Pal­mer, Bri­an Deane, To­ny Ye­boah. Sub­stitutes: Rod­ney Wal­lace, Nigel Wor­thing­ton, Lu­cas Radebe. Man­chester Uni­ted Te­am: Pe­ter Schmei­chel, Ga­ry Ne­ville, Paul Par­ker, Ste­ve Bru­ce, De­nis Ir­win, Da­vid Beck­ham, Nicky Butt, Roy Ke­ane, Bri­an Mc­Clair, Eric Can­tona, Andy Cole. Sub­stitutes: Da­vid May, Phil Ne­ville, Paul Scholes.

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