On another rain swept evening of European action at Elland Road, Leeds swept aside a dangerous looking Lokomotiv Moscow side - to achieve their tenth successive win in all competitions - an all time record.

Prior to the game, O'Leary had played down his own side's chances and praised what he'd seen of Lokomotiv on his recent scouting mission to Russia. Kidology? Well, not entirely. Lokomotiv are clearly a highly accomplished side who would have given most British sides a real run for their money tonight. Enjoying more than their fair share of possession in the opening half, they also had plenty of pace throughout the side and several players not afraid to shoot on sight. The fact that, at the end of the day, we beat them so comprehensively is real testament to how far we've come in the last twelve months.

We got stuck in to Lokomotiv right from the kick off - surely the best policy - and could have taken the lead as early as the third minute, Woodgate's header saved on the line following a corner. Both teams then had periods of possession and looked equally dangerous. Lokomotiv showed plenty of movement up front but their forwards were well contained by Radebe and Woodgate.

Our second real opportunity came in the 20th minute. Bridges found himself in a few feet of space on the right hand side of the box and hammered a powerful drive towards goal. The effort had real pace, and looked to be heading for the top corner, but just swerved away at the last moment.

Then, just before the half hour mark, we took the lead. We were awarded a free kick close to the left hand goalline, which McPhail took. He chipped the ball into the box, Bridges headed on to Woodgate, who played the ball back to Bowyer on the edge of the area. His low drive took a slight deflection as it hit the back of the net, to give us the lead.

We then pressed forward, looking for the comfort of a second goal, and managed to score just at the right moment - on the stroke of half time. Bridges sprinted down the left hand touch line and delivered a superb cross into what looked like an empty area. However, typically, Bowyer had covered all of thirty yards to acrobatically glance a hedaer past a stationary keeper. A superbly energetic goal.

Within a few minutes of the restart came two major turning points. Firstly, Martyn dived full length, high to his left, to tip a powerful drive over the bar with his fingertips. Then, from the resultant corner, he repeated the same feat, but this time to his right. Both were saves of the very highest order. The fact that they were only a minute apart was even more eyecatching. Had Lokomotiv scored at this point, then we would surely have been in for a completely different second half. As it turned out, though, we would shortly increase our lead - and in controversial fashion.

Alan Smith, who scored two goals against Sheffield Wednesday on Saturday, was again on target. Following a real scramble in the Russian's area, he connected with a superb bicycle kick to put us three up. The only problem was that he also connected with the head of Lokomotiv's Pashinin, to understandable howls of protest from the Lokomotiv players.

At this point though, 3-0 up with over half an hour remaining, we became perhaps a little complacent - and almost undid all our good work in the 81st minute. A highly debatable free kick was awarded against Radebe, on the edge of the area, and from the resultant free kick Loscov curled the ball low past the diving Martyn and the right hand post. An invaluable 'away' goal meant that Lokomotiv would only need to win 2-0 away to go through.

However, just two minutes later, our nerves were settled once more. The ball fell to Kewell on the left hand touchline. He sprinted into the area to hammer a low drive across the body of the hapless Nigamtoulline - to restore our three goal cushion.

United now face the difficult trip to Russia in a fortnight's time. However, despite the quality of the opposition and the uncertainities of the Russian climate, it would surely take one of the upsets of the season to prevent us from progressing to the third round of the UEFA Cup.

United Star Man: Lee Bowyer