Bruno Fernandes and Paul Pogba were the star acts of a scintillating team display as Manchester United turned on the style in their rout of a Leeds side who ended shell-shocked and desperate for the referee, Paul Tierney, to blow the whistle.

Last season’s corresponding fixture had Leeds trounced 6-2 but this was a far finer display from United who were a study of effervescent and powerhouse football. Fernandes ended with a hat-trick and Pogba as the chief conductor, his clutch of assists illustrating precisely why Ole Gunnar Solskjær values him so preciously.

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“Impressive: Paul has got that vision, he has got that quality,” Solskjær said of Pogba, whose assists numbered four - a United record in the competition.

The Norwegian, though, had praise for all his players. “I know that the headlines will probably be about Bruno or Paul but this is a team effort.

“The space Mason [Greenwood] creates for Bruno when the two open up the channels has been worked on this week. I am very impressed with Paul’s fitness levels as well. He looks fit, ready to go. I love seeing Paul, Bruno, all these guys smiling, enjoying their football.

“It has been a perfect day in that respect. I love the 12.30 kick off - just driving in with the fans outside, you come inside and feel the energy, absolutely brilliant. It has been a very good day. This is Manchester United - everyone together.”

For the neutral, too, this was a rousing return to a sold-out Old Trafford that featured two sides going at each other like cruiserweights before a crowd whose volume level pushed the needle into the red throughout.

Fernandes’s slickly taken first-half strike came via the kind of rapid tempo that will delight Solskjær. From near halfway Scott McTominay pinged the ball to Pogba, whose instant relaying of it had Fernandes pulling the pass down with a feathered touch, then beating Illan Meslier with a finish that pinballed home off the keeper’s right leg.

United were configured in Solskjær’s usual 4-2-3-1, 17 months after the last full house in the stadium. Then, 73,288 saw Manchester City handed a 2-0 derby defeat that ended in raptures as McTominay struck the 40-yard second into an empty goal.

This time the midfielder had Fred alongside him to form a partnership that can lack flair and which was fielded due to a reshuffle in attack that featured Pogba pushed up, as Anthony Martial’s condition was enough only for a substitute role, where he was joined by Jadon Sancho, the £73m summer signing.

An ever-present roar began with the pre-kick-off parading of Raphaël Varane as his protracted transfer was finally sealed (subject to international clearance) while Sancho would enter for his debut, alongside Martial, on 74 minutes.

United’s ascendancy had lacked the killer touch of further finishes when the interval arrived and so it was that the second half began with all results still possible. For this, Marcelo Bielsa introduced the new signing, Junior Firpo, Rodrigo making way, and soon his team were level.

This was a finish to remember, as Luke Ayling, the right-back, collected from Stuart Dallas, who strode forward and let fly a peach that was always curling away from David de Gea, to the delight of the pogoing travelling fans.

United bookended the game with their signings. Jadon Sancho’s inconclusive cameo came at the end; intriguingly, while he has probably been signed to play on the right, he replaced Paul Pogba on the left, which gave Leeds some respite. Raphaël Varane was unveiled before kick-off, to a deafening ovation. “Now that is an Old Trafford welcome,” he tweeted. Marcelo Bielsa brought on Junior Firpo in a half-time reshuffle, though as Leeds conceded four goals in his first 23 minutes on the pitch, the left-back certainly did not shore up the defence or have a debut to savour. Richard Jolly

This same emotion was about to surge through their opposite number, as United embarked on an irresistable goal-rush. Their second strike was even finer than the game’s previous two, a scintillating back-to-front sequence that had Luke Shaw finding Pogba in traffic near the United area. A sublime 40-yard ball from the No 6 skimmed beyond Pascal Struijk into the path of the galloping Mason Greenwood along the left. The forward skated in on an angle, then beat Meslier with a finish that hit the far post.

Seconds later there was more. In this mood Pogba is the world beater he can be billed as, able to dictate when the goal is breached. So it was that his next contribution was a disguised ball that hit Fernandes. The No 10 performed a shoe-shuffle that left defenders flailing and him able to score with his left, goalline technology confirming that Ayling’s clearance came too late.

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If this was supremely enjoyable for the United congregation, they next entered dreamland courtesy, in part, of the unlikely figure of Victor Lindelöf. The Swede is seriously under threat from Varane’s arrival so the best riposte is to up quality. The ball into Fernandes was akin to a seasoned schemer’s as it took his teammate clear and the talisman’s bullet burst the net for only United’s second Premier League hat-trick since Robin van Persie’s clinched the 2012-13 title here.

He said: “The joy is really good - I will call my wife and hear my kids saying: ‘the ball is coming home’. It is unbelievable, you cannot describe this feeling.”

On an opening day to remember, the goals just kept coming. Greenwood played an around-the-corner pass into Pogba and he - yet again - was provider, rolling the ball to Fred, who can be maligned but whose finish made it 5-1 and equalled his total of last term.

By the close this was the perfect start for the home side and a total nightmare for Leeds. “The succession of three goals in such a short space of [second half] time overcame us,” said Bielsa. “To have lost the way we lost can’t be described as just a blip.”