LEEDS midfielder Kalvin Phillips has revealed he was tasked with keeping Bruno Fernandes quiet on Sunday – and he has revealed how he succeeded.
Manchester United headed to Elland Road looking to close the gap on neighbouring leaders City.
But a subdued performance ensured the highly-anticipated Premier League showdown ended in a goalless bore draw.
Ole Gunnar Solskjaer started with both Paul Pogba and Edinson Cavani on the bench with one eye on Thursday’s Europa League semi-final first-leg with Roma.
But the United boss did pick talisman Fernandes, but the Portuguese star was stifled throughout by Leeds’ England international midfielder.
Speaking to Sky Sports after helping his team climb above Arsenal into ninth, the 25-year-old Phillips said: “That’s what we’re about, Leeds as a club, we dig in and try to make it hard for teams.
“Particularly teams like Man Utd, it was a good game and I enjoyed the battle in midfield and everywhere on the park.”
When quizzed about his job of nulling the threat of Fernandes, he said: “We do it all games, we have different markers every game.
“My task was Bruno so I did my best to keep him quiet and luckily he didn’t pop up with a goal so I did alright.
“It depends, really (man-to-man marking), I think we’re more vulnerable when we don’t pick the wide men up and stuff like that, but I think it’s just the way that we play, we’ve always played like that.
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“The attackers that we’ve got are very used to man-to-man marking and trying to press when we’re off the ball and hopefully, it brings us spaces when we’ve got it.”
Leeds were hanging on at the end after the introduction of both Pogba and Cavani, but the ace insisted his team deserved a share of the spoils.
Phillips added: £I think so, there were a couple of chances either end.
“Man United had a couple of chances from set-pieces in the first half, but towards the end, we came up with a couple at the end. All in all, I think it’s a fair result, yeah.”
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