Stuart Dallas savoured a match-winning brace after doubling his tally for the season in Tuesday night’s 2-1 victory away to Birmingham City.

Dallas struck fine efforts either side of half-time at St Andrew’s as United ended a four-game winless run and put a major dent in the Blues’ play-off hopes.

The Northern Ireland international opened the scoring after just 11 minutes, picking out the bottom corner with a precise strike from the edge of the area as United controlled the early exchanges. Head coach Steve Evans went as far to say the first-half display was the best he’d seen from Leeds since his October arrival.

Dallas then popped up with a stunning second five minutes after the break, leaving goalkeeper Adam Legzdins stranded with a thunderous 20-yard volley after latching onto Chris Wood’s header.

United were made to work for the three points as Clayton Donaldson pulled one back for the hosts before substitute Alex Mowatt was dismissed in stoppage-time, but the visitors withstood the late pressure to ensure Dallas would remain the hero.

Reflecting on his double, the winger said: “It was a good phase of play for the first goal, I think it was six or seven passes and I just popped up in the hole.

“It happened to me in a similar position at Burnley and I put it into Row Z in the second half, so fortunately tonight it was able to go in.

“For the second goal, Woody won the header – I don’t think he lost a header all night. He won everything.

“Marco is also claiming an assist for the second goal – I don’t know how when Woody’s flicked it on!

“You’ve got to take your chances to go in behind and, fortunately, I was able to control it and hit it. Sometimes they go in, sometimes they don’t.

“Fortunately it went in for me. As soon as you hit it you know if you’ve caught it well.

“It happened to me earlier in the season at Wolves from a similar one and it clipped the outside of the post. That was close, but sometimes they go in, sometimes they don’t.”

The 24-year-old is now targeting a strong end to the season as United head into the final five games buoyed by an impressive display at St Andrew’s.

Asked about the performance against Birmingham, Dallas added: “The first half was as well as we’ve played all season, we showed how good we can be and we played at a high intensity. We didn’t let them play.

“That’s what we’ve been working on. We worked on it yesterday in training.

“Whenever the opposition get the ball, you have a sort of ten-second fury to try and get it back.

“If we can keep adding to our game and keep putting in the performances we did during the first half, we’ll be in a good place.

“We haven’t done that enough this season but hopefully we can push on now and finish strongly.”