Merry Christmas, folks. All of us at LeedsLive hope you’re having a wonderful day with friends and family. While I can’t promise this was typed out with my kids hanging off me around the tree, it’s still possible to look back on where things are at with the Whites.
United’s players and staff will be with their families this morning, but history would suggest Jesse Marsch has to get them into Thorp Arch for a few hours today. Manchester City’s visit may still be two days away, but United cannot let anything slip when the champions are coming to town.
It’s going to be so special to have the real stuff back in our lives. The last 40-plus days have been a grind for all concerned, even if the World Cup was a hugely entertaining spectacle.
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Leeds come out of the break in a decent position. When it felt like the bottom was going to fall out of the Marsch era with those defeats to Leicester City and Fulham, they managed to fight on with two priceless wins.
That Crysencio Summerville goal at Anfield could go down in history as the moment Marsch’s job was saved. The chaos and drama of the Bournemouth fightback masked over the fact a newly-promoted side scored three times at Elland Road.
The Tottenham Hotspur match was 15 minutes away from being a third straight win and the kind of momentum which puffs chests out going into the second part of the season. As it is, the late collapse put a downer on the break.
The friendlies have gone okay. You cannot argue with the results from the first two matches, even if they were turgid and unconvincing in parts. The first half against Monaco was the best football of the month, but it was all undone by those 10 minutes of madness after the restart.
There is trepidation with the arrival of Pep Guardiola’s side, but the record against the best clubs in the league this season has to give encouragement. Chelsea were demolished in the zenith of Marsch’s Leeds tenure, Arsenal deserved to lose, Liverpool did lose and Tottenham got away with it in the last 15 minutes.
Go well and may your dinners go off without a hitch.
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