Manchester United vs Leeds United: Pre-Season Friendly Highlights
On a sweltering Dublin evening, with the light draining from a hot August sky, Manchester United and Leeds United played out a pre-season friendly that felt like it belonged on another continent. The air was heavy, the tempo was patchy, and yet, every so often, there was a reminder that both sides are only a few weeks away from the real thing.
This was dress rehearsal territory, the familiar phoney war of July and August. Touches are sharpened, lungs are stretched, managers scribble notes. When Joshua Zirkzee met Diogo Dalot’s driven cross with a sharp, first-time left-foot shot and James Trafford stooped to save, everyone could tick a box. Chance created. Chance denied. Rhythm found.
United did not have to wait long for something more tangible. Bryan Mbeumo tore down the left, burned past white shirts and picked out Zirkzee again. Same technique, same instant hit, different outcome. This time the striker’s finish flew past Trafford to the keeper’s right and into the net.
Leeds had been ripped apart. Their right flank – Jayden Bogle and Sebastiaan Bornauw – simply disappeared, shredded by a move straight out of the Carrick–Steve Holland playbook. One pass, one run, one cut. Gone.
Leeds’s system, the 3-5-2 that Daniel Farke leaned on to rescue their season and, by extension, his own job during that 3-2 comeback at Manchester City in November, can still bite back. It kept them up. It gave them structure. It also carries a warning: when the wing-backs sink too deep, the whole thing snaps into a back five, and the initiative drains away.
So it proved. Bogle and Rhys Chadwick dropped in, Leeds retreated, and United poured forward again. Mbeumo, buzzing and aggressive, forced another opening that exposed the same soft underbelly.
Leeds finally responded with some needle of their own. Ao Tanaka hurled two long throw-ins into the United area, each one dipping nastily and forcing the red shirts into hurried clearances. The game briefly lost its shape. Then it swung.
Tyler Fletcher tried to dance out of trouble in midfield. He hesitated. Dan James did not. The winger robbed him, looked up and clipped a neat ball into the box. Brenden Aaronson arrived and passed his finish beyond Senne Lammens, who could do nothing about it.
The tone changed. Trafford was just as helpless a few minutes later when Mbeumo unleashed a vicious drive that crashed against the bar, the woodwork sparing Leeds as substitutes lined up along the touchline for the second-half churn.
Before any of that, Michael Carrick had outlined who would not be involved. “Marcus [Rashford], Licha [Martínez] and Kobbie [Mainoo] aren’t quite ready yet,” he said. “We’re preserving them for this weekend [against Milan in Wroclaw].” Also missing were Mason Mount, kept out as a precaution, Tom Heaton, whose issue is still being checked, and Harry Maguire, only just back in training.
Inside the cavernous Dublin bowl, the PA announcer had tried to inflate the occasion. “Tonight is going to be historical,” he screamed, selling the first ever meeting between two English clubs at this stadium as something grander than a tune-up exercise.
The team sheets told a different story. Carrick’s triple change at half-time was hardly box-office. Off went Patrick Dorgu, Andrey Santos and the excellent Mbeumo. On came Toby Collyer, Daniel Armer – an 18-year-old making his debut – and Tynan Thompson, handed his first appearance since joining.
Farke went even harder with the rotation, making 10 changes and leaving only Bornauw on from the first half. The obvious question hung over the restart: would this disintegrate into chaos?
For a few minutes, it didn’t. Harry Wilson and Alfie Cresswell both stung the palms of Lammens, who stayed sharp, and Zirkzee, still gliding through challenges, danced into the area with the kind of close control that suggests he is ready for more than pre-season cameos.
Then the game fractured again. Carrick sent for his heavyweights in one sweeping substitution: six changes, including captain Bruno Fernandes, Youri Tielemans – the £35m new signing – and Matheus Cunha to lead the line in a 4-2-3-1.
The effect was oddly flat. The contest sagged. Passes went sideways, then backwards. The crowd waited for a spark that did not come. Only in the closing stages did the tempo flicker back into life: Lammens beat away a fierce drive from James Justin, Fernandes had a goal chalked off for offside, then clipped the bar with another effort.
Around them, the evening frayed at the edges. Before full time, five young supporters sprinted on to the pitch to grab selfies with Fernandes and Tielemans. Security finally reacted, only for a sixth invader to follow. Pre-season might be low stakes on the scoreboard, but moments like that will trouble club officials more than a missed chance or a misplaced pass.
The Boyle Sports Cup needed a winner, so penalties decided it. United held their nerve, edging the shootout 5-4, with Noussair Mazraoui burying the decisive kick. Players shook hands, swapped shirts, and drifted away into the Dublin night, leaving little in the way of clear answers about where either side is headed.
United’s summer record now reads: this win, a 1-1 draw with Paris Saint-Germain on Saturday, a 2-1 victory over Atlético Madrid, a 5-0 demolition of Rosenborg and a 1-0 defeat by Wrexham on 18 July. Leeds, after this loss, stand on wins over RB Leipzig (2-0), Liverpool (4-2) and Sunderland (1-0), plus that 3-2 defeat to Wrexham on 26 July.
Leeds will close their preparations by hosting Augsburg. United fly to Poland to face Milan in Wroclaw. Last season they finished third, 24 points clear of Leeds in 14th. With only Tielemans and Santos arriving as major signings so far, United would quietly accept the same outcome. Leeds would bite your hand off for it. Survival, again, is their line in the sand.
