Soccer news: Manchester United vs Leeds pre-season friendly reaction
Manchester United and Leeds played out a 0-0 draw in a pre-season friendly on Saturday, July 19.
Sports News Blitz’s Robert Bore reflects on United’s first pre-season outing ahead of the new campaign.
Match review
Blow the cobwebs off...
Look, it was a friendly. I'm not even that bothered about who started the game with 18 players named on the bench at the Strawberry Arena in Stockholm.
Old Trafford new-boy Matheus Cunha and fellow debutante Diego Leon did get their first starts nonetheless but, again, it's the opening friendly of pre-season.
But it was Leeds I guess, so at least it’s a little spice to tickle the taste buds.
And in the battle of two of this coming season's relegation favourites, it was the newly-promoted Yorkshire side that started best and looked lively in the opening 10 minutes.
By the 20th minute, it was predictably bland with little of real note.
Talking of spice, the vocal fans from Elland Road may have been on a bit of it as their songbook - albeit loud and presumably fuelled by expensive Swedish beers - generally consisted of "your support is fucking shit" being directed at the hordes of blonde-haired, blue-eyed Scandinavian families sat resplendent in red shirts.
To be fair to them, their boys looked far the more decent of the two while Casemiro, almost literally half the man he was before Ruben Amorim's arrival, was looking svelte while charging around in midfield.
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Amorim's men looked better as the half went on and Cunha wasn't best pleased when Chido Obi flashed a shot just wide when the former Wolves man looked about to smash the ball goalward.
Casemiro saw his intended cross deflect back off the crossbar just before the whistle and then it was substitute sweepstake time.
The winning number was 19, 11 for United and eight for Leeds as it would take far too long to list them all.
I didn't, working on the premise that if they do something good (or stupid) then you'd know they had come on anyway.
Tom Heaton saved well as Leeds got in behind and Ao Tanaka probably should have scored at the far post from the resulting corner.
Diogo Dalot threw his hands up at Rasmus Hojlund for the first time this campaign despite playing the ball into him a second too late, and it was good to see the spectre of 2024-25 remains.
Heaton made an equally impressive save from Largie Ramazani as United lumbered around the pitch somewhat.
And I admit, by the time Harry Maguire was subbed off after just short of a 30-minute workout, I was nodding off a bit, not with any disrespect intended - I was just tired.
I opened an eye to the sound of Kobbie Mainoo heading Hojlund's knockdown against the bar.
And then a late flurry saw Patrick Dorgu with two half chances. The game ended 0-0 soon after.
But what did we learn?
Well, apart from the fact Leeds need some new songs and I see myself suddenly susceptible to Saturday afternoon 'Nana Naps', not much really.
And nor should we.
It's a friendly people, and the very start of the journey to readiness for Arsenal next month.
As kettles of fish go, that's going to be much different.
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