Thriving Leeds United youngster issues bullish Whites message with mission accomplished

Midfielder McGurk and United’s under-21s began the new PL2 season with a 4-2 win at Brighton and backed up that triumph with Friday night’s 2-1 victory against Manchester United under-21s at Old Trafford.

McGurk himself opened the scoring with a strike in just the eighth minute and the midfielder’s dummy from a Luca Thomas pass then set up Connor Douglas to double the Whites lead eight minutes after the break.

The Red Devils finally pulled a goal back in the 93rd minute through a deflected Charlie McNeill effort but the home side’s Sonny Aljofree was then sent off as a handball earned him a second booking and Leeds headed back across the Pennines with all three points.

Michael Skubala’s newly-promoted team now sit fourth in the PL2 Division One table with six points out of six and McGurk says his side believe they are capable of taking a victory in any challenge that the division has to offer.

"I think it's good,” said 20-year-old McGurk to LUTV of Friday night’s triumph. “I think we had a good start last week against Brighton and the aim all week was to come here and get three points.

"I think with the squad of players that we have got, we are not shy to go anywhere to know we can get the three points so to come here and do that was good.

"Obviously coming to Old Trafford is never going to be easy. They are going to dominate part of the game and I think that we dealt with that very well.

"I think our two goals were brilliant. I think the way that we played like one, two touch football in parts of the game led to the two goals. It's what we have been working on all week so it's good to see what we are doing in training being put it into the games."

Reflecting on his goal, McGurk reasoned: "I have seen the ball as it went to Sonny (Perkins). I have seen that the defender was out of position so I just made the run in case the ball came towards me and just first-time finish into the corner.

"Luckily it went into the bottom corner and got us off to a good start. We are made up. It wasn't an easy game. I think we dug in deep, we work together, we stuck together and the outcome was what we came here to do."