Alex Ferguson and Arsene Wenger, who have been there, won that, play their mind games against each other. David O'Leary, the new boy on the Premiership management block, wages his psychological war of words against his team and board.

O'Leary's nascent Leeds United side are over-achieving, he says, and the more they rise, the more he keeps saying it. He is daring them to prove him wrong, but relishing their positive response, by way of contrast with predecessor George Graham, who preferred to tell them they weren't quite good enough, as if to ease his smug, ungracious flight south.

Leeds are "over-achieving" very nicely, thank you. Ninth before O'Leary's first League victory, against Sheffield Wednesday on November 8, they are now not only consolidating fourth place, but closing in on Chelsea too.

The gap is down to two points after United's fifth successive victory, their best run since the Premiership launch in 1992-3. But just when fans start dreaming of clinching a champion's league place, O'Leary - rightly, I believe - dowses the flames of fantasy.

There are, he says, two leagues within the Premiership: Ferguson's Manchester United, Wenger's Arsenal and cosmopolitan Chelsea, then the rest, and should Leeds win the other division they will have done "fantastically well".

Against a Sheffield Wednesday lacking the inspirational Italian Benito Carbone through suspension, Leeds did not have to do "fantastically well", but did enough to win, always quicker to the ball and slicker in movement.

Beaten and baffled, Wednesday manager Danny Wilson reckoned Leeds would not have an easier win all season, his infuriatingly inconsistent team going down to their eighth home defeat with their "worst performance".

A harsh assessment in truth but despite referee Graham Poll's harvest of five Wednesday bookings, suggesting the contrary, Wilson was right when he called it the quietest Yorkshire derby he could recall.

The writing was on the Wednesday wall as early as the fourth minute when Leeds scored from their first attack. Jimmy Floyd Hasselbaink, the Dutch master blaster, shot hard, low and fast, his free kick going in off the post.

Wednesday had not come from behind to win all season, and with Ritchie Humphreys playing and looking like a barrel of beer, and a profligate Andy Booth wasting three first half headers, only Niklas Alexandersson's 13th minute shot on the turn had Nigel Martyn sweating on his 100th Premiership appearance in the Leeds goal.

Leeds should have been over the horizon by half time, but just as they did against Leicester, Hasselbaink and the precocious Alan Smith, fluffed their lines when one on one with the goal-keeper.

Hasselbaink, however, turned provider, releasing David Hopkin who finished at the second attempt.

Seventy-two minutes, game over, and it was back to O'Leary's psychological trench warfare. He doesn't yet know how much money he'll be given for his summer shopping list, he says. Yes, the kids are doing all right, but he won't let anyone kid him that he doesn't need more quality recruits, more men like the returning Yorkshire terrier David Batty.

Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.