01/04/2000  Leeds 0 Chelsea 1

The Premier League title race was effectively declared over 
as the Leeds bandwagon finally ground to a shuddering and 
decisive halt.

For the first time this season, manager David O'Leary's 
side have lost three successive matches, and in doing so it 
means Sir Alex Ferguson's Manchester United are out of 
sight.

The league trophy might as well be gift-wrapped and handed 
to Ferguson now because with just seven matches remaining, the 
Old Trafford giants are 10 points clear - a bridge too far for 
those that trail in their wake.

While United dismantled West Ham, Leeds stumbled to a sorry 
defeat as 20-year-old Jon Harley proved the Elland Road club 
do not have the monopoly on gifted youngsters.

The battle now is for the minor places, and after being in 
the top two since September 19, Leeds are in extreme danger of 
watching their long-held dream of a place in next season's 
Champions League also disappear over the horizon.

Harley's second goal of the campaign means Chelsea are 
within five points of Leeds and that coveted second automatic 
slot in the top flight which guarantees European riches.

Leeds are faltering at a vital time, while Liverpool, 
Arsenal and Chelsea are finding their feet just when the going 
starts to get tough.

With a trip to the 'Hell' of Galatasaray in the UEFA Cup 
semi-final beckoning on Thursday, O'Leary's side could not be 
heading to Turkey in worse form.

In truth, Harley's 62nd-minute winner was the highlight of 
a game in which you had to wonder what all the fuss was about 
given the pre-match hype.

It was a match which could have been awarded an 
X-certificate on past record, but this was about as tame as 
watching Bambi.

After the full-blooded encounters between the sides in the 
1970s when parental guidance was essential, the mantle was 
then taken up by the late 1990s teams as tribal warfare 
unfolded.

The previous five games had seen four dismissals - 
including Frank Leboeuf twice - along with another 30 yellow 
cards having been dispensed, with the two clubs seemingly 
battle-hardened.

Referee Jeff Winter, who had been in charge of the last two 
games, could rightly have expected to have taken centre stage, 
but was reduced to nothing more than a cameo role as the 
players behaved impeccably - for the most part.

Only in the closing stages did tempers begin to fray as 
Alan Smith was booked - one of four all told - for an elbow on 
Leboeuf, which led to Chris Sutton then taking a stranglehold 
on Stephen McPhail as the players converged.

But it was nothing more than a storm in a teacup as Chelsea 
boss Gianluca Vialli had earlier appealed to his side to keep 
their cool should the temperature have taken a sharp rise at 
any point, while Leeds still had the words of a Football 
Association disciplinary panel ringing in their ears.

United were fined a record £150,000 for their part in an 
18-man brawl with Spurs at Elland Road in February, as well as 
censured as to their future conduct.

So it was perhaps no surprise a potentially explosive clash 
failed to reach anywhere near boiling point, with the 
treatment meted out to Leboeuf creating the only tension.

Leboeuf was booed every time he touched the ball, with 
Leeds fans not having forgotten the red card in last season's 
goalless draw in Yorkshire, but more controversially his stamp 
on Harry Kewell in Leeds' 2-0 win at Stamford Bridge in 
December.

On that occasion, the Frenchman was just about to receive 
his second booking from Winter - and the subsequent red - when 
he dug his studs into the Australian international's ankle, an 
action which went unseen by the official but not by the 
cameras.

But the experienced campaigner and World Cup winner 
shrugged off the boos and the jeers from the majority of the 
40,000 crowd, who witnessed a game dominated by the 
defences.

With such important games looming for both sides, neither 
was willing to give an inch in a match which will have sent 
watching scouts from Barcelona and Galatasaray away thinking 
they have little to fear later this week.

Leboeuf, restored to the starting line-up after missing 
last week's home draw with Southampton, is already sidelined 
for the Champions League quarter-final first-leg with Barca at 
Stamford Bridge on Wednesday due to suspension.

But if anyone from the Spanish giants was looking on, then 
they will surely realise the Chelsea team on show today will 
bear no resemblance to that which will play in midweek.

Vialli, with one eye on that game and another on the FA Cup 
semi-final with Newcastle next Sunday, and having had 10 
players away on international duty last week, rested a dozen 
of his top stars.

Gianfranco Zola was benched, but there was no place for the 
likes of Tore Andre Flo, Marcel Desailly, Didier Deschamps, 
Dan Petrescu and Gustavo Poyet, who returned from an 
exhausting trip to South America only in the early hours of 
this morning having played in a World Cup qualifier for 
Uruguay.

It meant there were four Englishmen in the starting line-up 
for the second successive Premier League match, but other than 
skipper Dennis Wise, it's almost certain Sutton, Jody Morris 
and Harley will play no part against the Catalan side.

Barcelona will surely trouble keeper Ed De Goey more than 
Leeds, though, even if United did shave the game in terms of 
chances and possession despite the defeat

After George Weah had fired into the side-netting in the 
ninth minute, Leeds then found their stride, but other than an 
Ian Harte header at De Goey, and a glancing header from Erik 
Bakke which shaved the post, their best effort of the game 
came just after the half hour.

Kewell's low ball to the near post was stabbed goalwards by 
Smith, with a scrambling De Goey just managing to keep the 
chance from crossing the line.

So it was left to Harley to settle matters as he ran on to 
a Sutton through ball, and after Gary Kelly had slipped as he 
tried to clear, the youngster was able to beat Nigel Martyn 
with a composed left-foot drive.

Lee Bowyer, fit again after a recent knee ligament injury, 
did direct one far-post header wide while in space in the 
second half, but it was as much as United could muster.

The previously sensational Kewell, who had scored six goals 
in his previous six games, was left one shy of a club record 
previously set by three players - including Peter Lorimer.

But he found himself shackled, like the rest of his 
team-mates, who will now have to free themselves from the 
constraints of the defeats which are threatening to drag such 
a sensational season towards a barren end.