Man Utd 1-1 Tottenham: ten men, one point, no excuses

Update (30 Oct): United haven't won since this game either, losing to Atlético, Como and Bournemouth and drawing at Leeds. Luke Shaw, who was involved in both big moments here, hasn't played since either. See our Man Utd injury tracker.

Man Utd 1-1 Tottenham was the kind of result that tells you more than a defeat would have. Spurs came to Old Trafford bottom of the table with two league goals all season. They spent most of the afternoon as the better side, played the last quarter of an hour with ten men, and still left with a point.

United are on six points from six games, their fewest at this stage of a league season since 1986-87. They were booed off at half-time and again at full-time.

The chances Spurs wasted

Carrick wants his teams to control games. For 70 minutes there was close to none of that.

Senne Lammens nearly gifted Spurs a goal in the third minute. Lucas Bergvall picked off a loose pass and put Dominic Solanke through, and Solanke didn't punish it. On 21 minutes, Savio set up Mohammed Kudus, who hooked a first-time shot wide of the post. Three minutes before the break, Solanke slipped in Conor Gallagher, who took too long and let Lammens save.

After the break it was the same pattern. Savio drove into the box and rolled one across the six-yard box, and Luke Shaw cleared. Two minutes later Savio got to the byline again and Solanke ballooned it over from six yards. Archie Gray hit the post. At one point Leny Yoro, picked at right-back, had to slide in to cover after Youri Tielemans waited for a ball to bounce in midfield.

United's best effort of the first half was Amad's low shot from an Mbeumo counter, which Antonin Kinsky saved easily. Lammens dawdled again later when Lisandro Martínez tapped the ball back to him on his own line, before he finally hoofed it clear.

Then a moment of quality

On 73 minutes, Shaw fed Matheus Cunha down the left. Cunha combined with Bryan Mbeumo in the box, Mbeumo turned and drove a clean, low finish across Kinsky. Old Trafford responded with chants about Manchester City's legal troubles, and for a few minutes everything felt fine.

It lasted five minutes. Shaw chased a Bruno Fernandes pass, Rodrigo Bentancur flew into a scissor challenge on him, and Shaw went after him. Jamie Jackson, reporting for the Guardian, thought Shaw was lucky to escape a red himself for the shove. Bentancur moved his head into Shaw's and was sent off. Shaw and Jan Paul van Hecke were booked, and it all set off a touchline row between the two benches.

Ten men. A goal up. A quarter of an hour, plus stoppage time, to see it out.

Ninety-two minutes

United didn't put the game away. They didn't keep the ball either. In the second minute of added time, Sandro Tonali floated a cross in from the left. Martínez lost sight of it, Solanke got across him and glanced a header past a static Lammens.

That was only Tottenham's third league goal of the season, and it came from their captain, wearing the armband for the first time. Spurs have been poor in first halves all year and haven't won a league game since May. They still found more conviction with ten men than United did with eleven.

What they said

Carrick didn't dress it up:

"We couldn't find a way to get ourselves into the game. With the ball, without the ball, we were off it.

"I'm not happy with the amount of points, I'm not hiding from that. We need to put things in a positive direction quickly.

"We have to be more streetwise and stubborn in the moment. It doesn't change my belief, or confidence in the players. We can be a really good team.

"We don't want to start games like that, it was challenging. They worked through it, got themselves in a good position, and couldn't see the game out. That's the most disappointing thing.

"I don't feel let down b[y] players making mistakes but we've all got to help each other be better."

Roberto De Zerbi was happier: "We did not deserve to lose, for sure. Today, for the first time we showed we're a team."

In the Sky Sports studio, Gary Neville said Spurs "were the better team by far" and that it was "a worrying day in terms of the level of performance". Jamie Redknapp went further: "The squad is not good or strong enough and Michael [Carrick] needs help in that respect."

One bright spot

Carlos Baleba came on for his debut around the hour and almost straight away spun and flicked a pass into Fernandes's path. Nobody else in that midfield had tried anything like it all afternoon. It was a small thing, but it stood out.

Why this one mattered

You can't lose control of a game against ten men who struggle to score and call it bad luck. Redknapp's line about the squad is the one that stuck. Within three days Martínez was saying the same thing in Madrid, and apologising for it two days later.

Read back now, this game has the whole autumn in it. The left side that has come apart without Shaw, which we've covered in the left-back problem. A keeper who looked nervous with the ball at his feet. And a team with no way to slow a game down when it was in front. United went to Madrid three days later and lost there too, as our Atlético report covers.

These were two points thrown away by a side that didn't know how to protect a lead. The winless run has now reached eight games, and that's still the problem Carrick has to fix before anything else.

Picture: Old Trafford lit up at night, by Lewis Clarke via Wikimedia Commons, licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0. Cropped to 16:9.