Man Utd 1-1 Spurs: ten men and we still couldn't win

I've been sat here for an hour since full time trying to work out how to start this, and I still haven't got anything better than this: we were winning, they had ten men, there were two minutes of stoppage time gone, and we still managed to throw it away. Man Utd 1-1 Spurs, and honestly it feels worse than losing.

The first hour was bobbins

Let's not pretend otherwise, because Spurs were the better side for the first 60 minutes and it wasn't even close. They had the ball, they had the ideas, and the only thing they didn't have was a finish. We looked like a team that had met in the car park an hour before kick-off, and I kept waiting for someone in red to grab the game and nobody did.

Then Carrick made three changes on 59 minutes, with Baleba coming on for his debut alongside Dalot and Zirkzee, and to be fair to him it did change things. We finally looked like we knew what we were doing, we started winning the ball back higher up, and for the first time all afternoon it felt like the goal was coming.

Mbeumo, then the red card

When it came it was a proper goal as well. Mbeumo turned onto his left foot on 73 minutes and drilled one low into the bottom corner, and Old Trafford went up like it hadn't had anything to shout about in weeks, which, let's be honest, it hadn't.

Five minutes later Bentancur got sent off for putting his head into Luke Shaw. Shaw had given him a shove after a couple of tasty challenges, and Bentancur bit, and that should have been the game. A goal up, at home, against ten men, with a quarter of an hour to go. You'd fancy most sides in the league to see that out.

And then we didn't

I don't really know what happened in those last ten minutes, and I'm not sure the players do either. Instead of keeping the ball and making ten men run, we dropped deeper and deeper and invited them on, and you could feel it coming. Tonali floated one to the back post in stoppage time, Solanke got a touch on it, and it went past Lammens. 1-1.

That's the bit that does my head in. Not the first hour, not even the result, but the fact that we had a game won and we didn't have the nous to close it out. Good sides kill teams off when they're down to ten. We sat back and hoped.

Where it leaves us

Nowhere good. This is being called our worst start to a league season in 40 years, and a home draw against a Spurs side who'd come to Old Trafford without a win all season isn't going to change that. We've got Atlético away on Tuesday, then Leeds, and I'll be honest with you, I'm dreading both.

If you're new here, this is what the blog's about, and it's games like this that are exactly why it exists.

Dan's Verdict: the subs worked, the goal was mint, and none of it matters because we still can't see out a game against ten men.

Who's to blame for that equaliser, the players or the manager for letting us sit so deep?