Rio called 'Judas' by irate Leeds' fans

Leeds 0 Manchester United 0

Rio Ferdinand’s hotly-anticipated return to Leeds drew the expected cries of "Judas" from the Whites fans bitter at his summer defection to Manchester United.

As Ferdinand ran onto the Elland Road pitch to warm up 30 minutes prior to this showdown the few thousand Leeds supporters inside the ground jeered, booed and taunted him.

But in terms of what Ferdinand was perhaps expecting, given the hype in the build-up to this match, it was all relatively subdued, as had been his initial entrance into the stadium.

In a smoothly-executed operation, the £29.1m (€46.4m) defender and the rest of his United team-mates managed to avoid the majority of the fans who had gathered at Elland Road’s main entrance, and so were unaware of what was happening elsewhere.

The United team coach pulled up at another part of the stadium and virtually alongside the players’ doorway.

There were a few supporters wearing T-shirts with slogans such as "Rio’s scum and he knows he is," while another read "Traitors - Jordan, McQueen, Cantona, Rio" - the others all players who have left Leeds for United.

Despite Ferdinand at the heart of United’s defence, this was undoubtedly Leeds’ best chance to finally end a 10-match winless run against their biggest rivals, with the last victory almost five years ago to the day.

Without the injured Roy Keane and Paul Scholes, manager Sir Alex Ferguson was forced to draft Phil Neville into the right side of midfield, with John O’Shea in at right back.

With Juan Sebastian Veron also out with a groin strain, captain David Beckham and Nicky Butt formed the central midfield pairing, with Ruud van Nistelrooy and Ole Gunnar Solskjaer up front as United looked to bounce back from their shock 1-0 midweek defeat to Bolton at Old Trafford.

Leeds pulled off a smash-and-grab raid at Newcastle at the same time, which meant boss Terry Venables named an unchanged side.