United and many of their fans, however, did not find out until they had arrived at the ground and chief executive Shaun Harvey said: "The first we knew there was potentially even a problem with the game not taking place was when it was called off which is very disappointing.
"The weather forecast last night predicted a deep frost. Why wasn't the pitch fully covered? We can't answer that. Our main gripe is that there was an option to fully cover the pitch and they chose not to do that, and for that reason and that reason alone it was off.
"If the game had been a 3pm kick-off the chances are it would have gone ahead, but it wasn't and the referee was left with no choice in view of what he saw.
"We apologise to Leeds fans who were kept in the dark but so were we on this occasion."