David O'Leary's trademark throughout the season has been to play down our chances of winning any silverware - and, unfortunately it is looking more and more like he may be proved right. Of course, much of this is his management style: presumably he is taking pressure off his largely inexperinced team. Not a bad thing.

However, it is to be hoped he has banned them from reading the build up to Thursday's game - against Roma - in the papers as he appears, even by his standards, to be talking up the opposition big time and talking down our chances of getting anything from the game.

He says "they are fantastic," "a class club," and "I wish we hadn't drawn them." He adds, "we've done really well to get this far," and, "if we get through this round it would be unbelievable." Let's hope this is all mind games and that he's sending very different messages to his players!

As far as goalless draws go, today's at the Riverside was quite enteretaining. However, the fact remains that with Man United dropping two points at Selhurst Park, we could've done with collecting a maximum three points this afternoon.

We had numerous opportunities to win the game, including another glaring miss by Lee Bowyer towards the end of the match. Let's just hope he's saving them up for Roma on Thursday night. To read a full match report of the Boro game, click here.

To read a full preview of Saturday's game againt Middlesbrough at the Riverside Stadium, click here. The United Boss will be hoping that Bridges and McPhail can pass late fitness tests to add a little more quality to his somewhat stretched looking squad.

The latter, of course, was due to make his International debut this week, for Eire against the Czech Republic. However, he was forced to miss out on a memorable night, through injury. He is still only 50-50 to start against Middlesbrough although, should he miss the game, it is thought he will be ready to make the trip to Roma on the following Thursday.

It was a particularly important night tonight for several of United's first teamers, as they represented their respective countries in a night of International football.

Of all the players, perhaps the biggest mention should go to Matthew Jones, who was handed his full International debut by new Welsh Manager Mark Hughes. The game, against Qatar, was played in scorching temperatures and wasn't exactly pretty on the eye. However, the United star was singled out for special praise for his performance. For the record books, Wales won the game by a single Robinson strike.

Ian Harte was on target for the republic of Ireland in Dublin against the Czech Republic. His goal, scored late in the first half, helped his country to a famous win against a country who are unbelievably listed second in the FIFA rankings.

Last but not least, Jason Wilcox made only his second ever full start for England, against Argentina at Wembley. The game ended 0-0, with the home team disappointing a little after an excellent first half performance. However, Jason could be more than happy with his overall performance. He was constantly involved in the play and produced several top quality crosses for the England forwards. More importantly, though, he offered the home side some much needed balance on the left side.

He will now hope to continue making an impact in the Leeds side for the rest of the season, in order to keep his place in Keegan's squad for the Euro 2000 finals. Unbelievably England don't have another International for the best part of three months - so Wilcox will just have to keep his fingers crossed that he did enough tonight to make an impact on his Boss.

Jason Wilcox must be pinching himself at the moment to make sure he's not dreaming. It's only just over two months ago that O'Leary took him from Blackburn to Elland Road in a deal reported to be worth anything between £1.5 and £3 million. At the time he was struggling to get a place in a struggling First Division outfit.

Upon arriving at Leeds, he unexpectedly broke straight into the first team and, after a string of consistent performances, has caught the eye of Keegan - as he struggles to solve a problem down England's left. No doubt he would have been chuffed to have been named in the squad but to find out today he's picked in the starting eleven, he must be over that proverbial footballers' moon. Meanwhile, what the blackburn supporters make of it all is anyone's guess. Certainly, the money we paid for Jason appears more than reasonable by today's standards.

He will gain his third full cap tomorrow at Wembley. His previous two outings were against Hungary in 1996 and against France last year.

Anyone who watched Boro ripped apart by Villa a week ago must have thought we'd have a good chance of getting back to wiining ways on Saturday. However, since then they've beaten Coventry and got one or two of their 'star' players back - notably Ziege and Ricard. At the same time, we look like fielding a pale shadow of our usual team as a result of injuries and suspensions.

Through suspensions, we will be without Bakke, Kelly and Jones. Batty will certainly be missing whilst McPhail and Bridges missed the Man United defeat. Radebe played but looked to be a long way short of full fitness.

O'Leary will be deparate for Radebe, McPhail and Bridges to play on Saturday: in which case, the new look team might be something like this.

I, along with another 40,000 Leeds supporters who have been turning up regularly this season, am still fervently praying that O'Leary has a secret transfer coup up his sleeve, that will give us a morale boosting lift, after Sunday's oh so disappointing defeat. However, I'm not building my hopes up! The Boss certainly hasn't given us any reason to believe that he's about to make any new purchases, despite the increasingly outrageous stories that are appearing in the newspapers.

The latest has us linked with a Brazilian teenager who is meant to be the next great thing to come out of South America. However, he isn't an out and out striker and doesn't fit any of the criteria previously layed down by O'Leary. What's more, at 19 years of age, is he really worth £20 million? Apparently not! The Chairman of his club, Gremio, reckon they've already turned down a £45 million bid from Barcelona!! The world has well and truly gone completely mad!

Not surprisingly, the whole story has been completely rubbished by sources close to United.

This was the worst type of defeat to stomach. Not only because it was against the unmentionables but because on the day you definitely had the feeling that they were there for the taking. Although we didn't play particularly well ourselves, they certainly weren't any better - and we carved out the majority of the goalscoring opportunities. It just seemed to be one of those games when nothing was going to go right. Having seen Bosnich make half a dozen decent saves, we also managed to hit the woodwork three times before Bowyer inexplicably missed an open goal with just ten minutes remaining.

The whole afternoon, though, had a slightly surreal atmosphere to it. Whetether it was the fact that Beckham wasn't on hand to receive all the abuse that had been lovingly prepared for him - but the match seemed to lack the usual vitriolic atmopsphere: certainly, it had a more 'low-key' feel to it than previous seasons' encounters, ironic when you bear in mind what was at stake

Cole did the damage, scoring the only goal of a game when he did very little else besides. Still, that's football! Over the first half of the season, we had everything going for us, winning games where we had absolutely no right to do so. Now the chickens are coming home to roost a little. We will now have to try to put together another of those runs that stood us in such good stead earlier in the campaign. However, whether we are able to do so after this morale crushing defeat and with a squad plagued by injuries and suspensions to key players, is anyone's guess.

Why is it that, season after season, we always manage to be without several crucial first team players for the Man United clash at Elland Road?

The job is tough enough to start with - but how much easier would it be should the likes of Radebe, Batty, Bridges and Duberry be available for O'Leary to select?

Of the above, Batty would appear to be a complete non-starter whilst Bridges must be regarded as highly unlikely to play. However, the nightmare scenario must be that with Duberry suspended on Sunday, Radebe might not recover from his leg injury in time. Sounds coming out of Thorp Arch today seemed to be suggesting that the South African is struggling although how much of this is kidology is anyone's guess. Let's just hope he makes it - as we have so little cover in this Department at the moment. Perhaps it might be an ideal time for Big Bob to make a return!? However, it is more likely that, should The Chief be unfit to play, Mills woulld be switched to centre back, where he played for Charlton on several occasions during his spell there. Keep praying!

Kevin Keegan today announced his squad for the forthcoming game against Argentina - which included a shock inclusion for Unite new boy Jason Wilcox.

Wilcox, who has only two previous full caps to his name, is included as a direct result of the excellent form he has shown for us over the last couple of months. With England struggling to find anyone to play at the left of midfield, should he impress there could be a Euro 2000 Finals place awaiting him at the end of the season.

Martyn was our second, and now automatic, exclusion. However, there were still no inclusions for our youngsters - Lee Bowyer yet again being the most obvious omission.

Is there no-one worldwide who can't be manipulated in order for Man United to get their own way?

Yesterday, I reported that Yorke was almost certain to miss this weekend's clash. Now in an apparent complete turnaround, Trinidad and Tobago have said he can return home to play in the fixture. As a result, his country will be missing their best player and could miss out on making the semi-finals of the competition. No wonder theri Coach is far from happy and says that the decision was taken out of his hands.

Contrast this with the grief we constantly get from the Aussie FA surrounding Harry - which resulted in him actually being banned for a game from playing for us - and the Radebe situation of late. Although our relationship with the South Africans has always been amicable, O'Leary reckons there would have been no point in asking whether Lucas could have returned home early from the competition last week, even though they had lost at the semi-final stage and were only playing for third place.

As a result of this, Lucas picked up an injury in the Third/ Fourth place Play Off match and could miss Sunday's game.

It's a fair world, isn't it?

With Leeds having several injury doubts for next weekend's big game, there was some good news today - with Trinidad and Tobago stating that Dwight Yorke will not be released in time to play.

Trinidad and Tobago beat Guatemala 4-2 yesterday and now seem almost certain to play in the quarter finals of the Gold Cup competition. Should this prove to be the case, then Yorke cannot be released to play for Man United against us, without getting his country's permission to do so. The fact that he is their best player and most likely goalscorer, and that they will be relying on him to get them through to the semis and final of the competition, would make this option highly unlikely.

The news will be particularly welcome to Leeds supporters as it was Yorke who did the damage in the away match at Old Trafford earlier in the season. Although he is not having the kind of season that he had last time round, he is still the type of player who could have popped up to do some damage on Sunday.

Driving home from work tonight and hearing that the FA had brought a misconduct charge against us and a separate one against Ian Harte, I was for once completely gobsmacked.

Having witnessed Spurs attempts to cheat their way to a result on Saturday, I find it indescribably difficult to stomach the attitude of the southern based press - who seem to be painting us as the villains of the piece.

As far as I could see - and I'm trying really hard to be unbiased here - the only possible black mark against us was Bowyer's reckless challenge which sparked the second half aggro. Having said that, Lee had just been cleared out by Sherwood and as per usual was getting little protection from the officials. I genuinely believe that he set off with the intention of getting the ball but the way he turned his foot into Clemence's midriff was a little naughty. Having said that, the referee saw the incident and booked him. End of story surely?

Apparently not...well not if you're wearing a Leeds shirt that is. As Spurs players rushed Bowyer we were presumably expected to offer no form of defence. How many punches were actually thrown by either team? Did anyone see one? Surely this was a case of real 'handbags at dawn' stuff. Certainly I didn't see any terrible forms of retaliation doled out by the United players. It's difficult to see how we could be charged with "failing to control [our] players."

The other incident, of course, took place during the last few seconds of the game. Ian Harte, who's hardly got the worst disciplinary record in the Premiership was involved in what looked like a minor tumble with Perry of Spurs. As he struggled to regain his footing his studs appeared to catch perry - but this was certainly no major stamping incident, such as the le Boeuf example a few weeks Back. The Spurs man then decided to take the law into his own hands, whacking Hartey across the face. The result? Harte's on a misconduct charge whilst Perry gets away totally unpunished. Who said life was fair?

Of course, all this takes place against a backdrop which has seen the Scum back to their intimidating best over the last couple of weeks. Following the debacle at home to Boro the other week, for which they were roundly criticise by just about everyone, they did exactly the same at away to Newcastle on Saturday. The outcome? They simply get a warning! What's more Fergie then has the audacity to complain that they get picked on by officials because they're man United. What a joke! They get treated far more leniently than any other team, despite the fact that they've got some of the nastiest sods wearing the red shirt at the moment. Roll on Sunday!

How much longer Spurs fans will tolerate this kind of drivel is anyone's guess. Not only were they piss-poor this afternoon, going down 1-0 to a moment of typical coolness from Harry, but they seemed intent to kick and cheat their way to a result - without success.

On his day - as we know to our cost - Ginola can be inspirational. However, this season he has failed to reach the heights of earlier campaign and this afternoon seemed to be acting very peculiarly: one moment throwing himself to the ground in theatrical fashion; the next, trying to wind up the opposition with a bit of the rough stuff.

The match will probably be remembered for a second half altercation, sparked by a Bowyer tackle. However, the whole tone was set by spurs, who seemed to realise that the only way they were going to have a chance of a achieving a result was to intimidate us. Unfortunately, for them, even trying the dirty stuff, they still found us more than a match.

Gorgeous George is guaranteed a warm welcome tomorrow when we entertain Spurs at Elland Road. Every game these days is of the 'must win' variety. However, should we lose against Tottenham, then surely we would have to say goodbye to any hopes of the title - whatever favours Newcastle might do us against Man United.

Some news sources have intimated that the Chief will be returning from South Africa, following their semi-final defeat against Nigeria. However, this was never going to be the case - so we will have to make do with Duberry for at least another week. Batty's state of health continues to be a major worry as yet again he will miss a crucial game for us.

The only consolation is that Spurs' injury worries are equally bad. Iversen will be missing tomorrow and Ferdinand is a long term absentee. As a result, Willem Korsten is in line to make his full debut against us - so he too should get that special Elland Road welcome - if anyone can remember who he is. One thing for certain is that any team who has to rely on Chris Armstrong to get them goals really must be up the creek without a paddle. Let's hope for three points on Saturday!

To read a full preview of the match, click here.

David Batty played 45 minutes of a specially arranged practice game at Thorp Arch yesterday - against Huddersfield Town reserves. Clearly, he is not going to be available for Saturday's match at Elland Road. However, with another reserve outing planned next week, he might just be able to make a return against Man United on Sunday February 20th.

There was a double blow today with bad news on the striker front. Firstly, Bridges has been ruled out for Saturday's game. Would you believe, he picked up the injury from Woody, who clipped his ankle in training. This must be a bitter pill for him to swallow as it would have given him the chance to prove to George Graham exactly what he'd missed out on over the close season. It is to be hoped that he will be fit again for the Man United game, which takes place a week on Sunday.

On the subject of Man U, as if things weren't bad enough, Richard Braithwaite - the Manager of Trinidad and Tobago - has suggested to Ferguson that Dwight Yorke could be released in time for the Leeds clash. Thanks, mate!

An unexpected twist in the tale of Saturday's Liverpool clash has arrived in the shape of news concerning match referee Mike Reed. It transpires that after Liverpool scored their second goal - to go 2-1 up - Mr Reed was seen on camera celebrating with clenched fist.

When questioned, he claimed that he was congratulating himself for allowing a Liverpool advantage which led to the Berger goal. However, whether this is enough to satisfy the FA - or Leeds for that matter - remains to be seen. Watch this space!

Our stuttering recent form continued at Anfield this afternoon - as we lost a 'must win' match and so slipped further behind Man United in the quest for the Championship title.

The 3-1 scoreline reflected Liverpool's overall superiority although, in reality, the difference between the two sides was sheer shooting power. I can't remember ever seeing three more powerfully struck shots in a single game. Hamann, Berger and Murphy did the damage, after Bowyer had equalised for us at 1-1. To read a full match report, click here.

We go into tomorrow's match at Anfield knowing that we have to achieve some kind of positive result, preferably a win, if we are to keep up any kind of pressure on leaders Manchester United.

As expected, Michael Owen has not been named in the Liverpool squad. Also missing is David Thompson, who has been having a great season for the scousers this time round. He misses the game for a suspension received during a reserve match against us, when David Hopkin also received his marching orders.

Titi Camara, who had a superb game against us at Elland Road, earlier in the season, is expected to lead the attack, alongside Dutchman Eric Meijer.

For us, O'Leary looks set to pick from a near full strength squad - although Batty and Radebe are still not available - through injury and International duty respectively - and continue to be big misses for us.

Amidst a season of high promise and excitement, there was no doubt that the blackest news came last month with the story that both Woody and Bowyer had been linked with a racist attack in Leeds City Centre in which an Asian teenager had been badly beaten.

Well there was more news today as three men were arrested for their part in the incident. Thankfully, the two Leeds players were not amongst those named. Two 20 year olds - one from Middlesbrough and the other from Walsall - and a 21 year old from North Yorkshire were the ones mentioned.

Although England supporters everywhere will have winced at the news, for United fans the news that Michael Owen is out of next week's clash at Anfield will have come as welcome news - as a win is now paramount if we are to keep up a challenge at the top of the Premiership table.

Owen damaged his hamstring in the recent game against Boro and has not trained for ten games. With Robbie Fowler also out with a long term injury, the scousers look a little short of firepower up front - which surely can only be good news for us!