united were still without defensive kingpin jack charlton, but manager revie deliberately chose a defensive line-up by adopting the same tactics he had used to such good effect in valencia using rod belfitt as a lone striker and packing the midfield with peter lorimer, eddie gray and terry cooper.
kilmarnock played both their speedy wingers, tommy mclean and brian mcılroy, but they got little change out of paul reaney and willie bell who stuck to their task to mark them out of the game. with paul madeley and norman hunter commanding in central defence and billy bremner restricting himself to purely defensive duties kilmarnock were not able to create many chances. when united did attack paul madeley headed against the crossbar and terry cooper almost beat the keeper.
united did not hesitate to foul or use gamesmanship to frustrate the scots and there were times when tempers frayed and eric murray, the kilmarnock half-back was booked for a foul on terry cooper. neither side had conceded more than one goal in their away ties, and, with an eight-man defence, leeds were intent on more of the same. whether they would succeed was in doubt as early as the third minute after gary sprake had twice foiled gerry queen and brian mcılroy with brave saves that resulted in him being injured. revie’s defensive tactics enabled the welsh custodian to demonstrate his undoubted talents. frank clough of the sun commented, “sprake produced one of the finest, if not the finest performance of his career, making five incredible saves and displaying reckless bravery. ın fact, sprake was truly magnificent, having an answer for everything that escaped the defenders in front of him.”
despite peter lorimer going close with a twenty-five yard shot near the end, the game was played to a goalless conclusion and united were through to the final against dinamo zagreb, who had overcome a three goal deficit from the first leg, to beat eintracht frankfurt 4-0, after extra-time.
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