Leeds United 1 - 1 Manchester United

	Danny Mills tangles with Phil Neville at Elland Road (MichaelSteele/Allsport)

Such is the dominance of Premiership proceedings by the Old Trafford club that the goal-keeper, who has World Cup and European Championship winner's medals, normally has time to cultivate a vegetable plot in the goal he guards.

Mind you, it has to be said the evidence was overwhelming that Barthez's second-half presence should have been denied United when he commited an offence which deserved a red card in first-half stoppage time.

Even so, it had been Barthez who covered for an uncharacteristically lethargic United as busy Leeds threatened to run amok.

A superbly timed tackle on Robbie Keane, after Barthez had been sold short by a Jaap Stam back-pass, would have delighted the most cultured defender. And his superb response to an inswinging free-kick from Ian Harte in the 17th minute characterised him as a keeper of the highest calibre.

Whether or not that distinctive head was still pounding after his reported clandestine departure from a Paris nightclub in the early hours a couple of days ago was not a subject for discussion by United.

But the hot-tempered kick-out at Harte after an irritating tussle with the Leeds player certainly provoked a moment of mayhem.

After consulting his assistant referee, and extricating himself from the midst of a pressurising melee of players, referee Graham Barber merely cautioned Barthez for his violent conduct and awarded Leeds a penalty.

Harte stepped up to exact retribution and - you've guessed it - Barthez stretched smartly to his right to add insult to injury with a superb block.

Perplexed Leeds manager David O'Leary said: 'It was a penalty. Once the referee had awarded it I don't know how Barthez should have stayed on the field to save it.'

Even Old Trafford boss Sir Alex Ferguson was surprised. He said: 'I didn't see the incident but my assistant Steve McClaren said the boy pulled Barthez and he had a little kick at him.

'I'm not sure the referee saw it but if he has had a little kick and the referee did see it then I'd have thought it should have been a sending-off.

'But you don't get consistency. Next week a defender or a goal-keeper will be sent off for something like that. You need strong referees and unfortunately he's one of the weaker ones.

'This was a hard game to handle because there were a lot of fouls. But he just ended up giving free-kicks to each team in turn to balance things out.'

To be fair to Barber he also cautioned seven other players - three from Leeds - and a single extra booking to the five inflicted on United would have resulted in an automatic £75,000 fine under the FA's new disciplinary code.

The majority of the illegal challenges were more spiteful than sinister. United were undoubtedly ruffled by the typically busy style of a Leeds team who are slowly but surely instilling their hugely successful European momentum into the Premiership.

Yet while Barthez remained to capitalise repeatedly on Barber's controversial act of clemency with excellent saves, Leeds could hardly have been confident of executing a deserved breakthrough.

It was not without a savage irony in the 64th minute, either, that when the previously totally unoccupied Nigel Martyn at the other end failed to hold a somewhat innocuous effort from Ole Gunnar Solskjaer, United substitute Luke Chadwick was on hand to pounce and score with ease.

Deservedly all was not lost as Mark Viduka finally succeeded in flummoxing Barthez with an unstoppable close-range header in the 84th minute after Lee Bowyer had knocked on a cross by Danny Mills.

There was more drama for United and anguish for Leeds in the final minute when Wes Brown diverted a low cross from Bowyer beyond Barthez only for the apparent winner to be disallowed for a hair's-breadth offside against Viduka.

After the sending-off admission, Ferguson could not quite bring himself to concede that Leeds might have merited victory. He said: 'We were in a winning position and we should not have lost it. At the end of the day a draw was a fair result.'

Hardly surprisingly O'Leary was not amused. He said: 'We dominated the first half and in the end we wore them down. It took a solid back four and an excellent goalkeeper to stop us.'