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By Ian Ladyman Published: 18: 00 AEDT, 4 November 2024 | Updated: 19: 39 AEDT, 4 November 2024 9 View comments We can presume Erik ten Hag – holed up in Holland – was not watching but just for a second this threatened to become another sporting tragi-comedy drawn from a script he would have instantly recognised. With Chelsea back on terms only five minutes after going behind, Manchester United defender Matthijs de Ligt moved to head away a routine looping ball on the edge of his own penalty area and promptly fell over. Nicolas Jackson did the intelligent and obvious thing and laid the loose ball back to Chelsea substitute Enzo Fernandes. Disaster once again loomed large for United and this time it was stand-in coach Ruud van Nistelrooy who was about to get that smack in the face feeling so familiar to the man who left the building last Monday. Not here, though. Not this time. Fernandez – a £100m World Cup winning footballer who started this season as his team’s captain – should have buried the shot and buried an opponent Chelsea have not actually beaten at Old Trafford since 2013. But he didn’t. Instead he spooned a tame shot over the crossbar and a poor game of football got exactly what it deserved, a bit of a nothing result. And that is the way football goes sometimes. It will not have been lost on Ten Hag that the one day he was presented with something genuinely to feel aggrieved about – the penalty awarded West Ham as they downed United in Ten Hag’s final game came off the back of an awful piece of VAR meddling – turned out to be the day his world finally fell to bits around him. Yet here, a week later, the dice fell in Van Nistelrooy’s favour. It happens. Manchester United surrendered their one-goal lead against Chelsea at Old Trafford on Sunday Erik ten Hag (middle) spent the weekend back in the Netherlands after being sacked by United Ruud van Nistelrooy's unbeaten start as interim manager continued against Chelsea United deserved their point here. Chelsea played the more constructive football. They laid the better platforms and it was easier to see their patterns. They also had the game’s best player. Even on a day smothered by mundanity like this one, Cole Palmer’s intelligence illuminated his every move. But United created some decent chances, carried a threat on the counter and, crucially, were free of the chaos that did sadly characterise Ten Hag’s team in the Dutch manager’s latter days. This was the first true examination of United in the post-Ten Hag era. Last Wednesday’s Carabao Cup win over Leicester’s reserves can largely be disregarded given the nature of the opposition. This was the real thing – Chelsea are a fast improving team under Enzo Maresca – and United at least presented a sense of organisation and obduracy not always present under Ten Hag.   They were harder to play against and, specifically, harder to play through. They kept possession rather better than they have at Old Trafford against big teams this season. Look back at the kamikaze nature of United’s encounters in their own stadium against Liverpool and Tottenham – both games lost 3-0 – and the differences were clear. These, it must be said, are small gains. Marginal gains as United’s head of sport Dave Brailsford may say. What it is increasingly hard to mask are the deficiencies that continue to run through this United squad as a whole. United remain imbalanced and lack a real goal scorer. The latter continues to represent a criminal failing to be levelled at United’s recruitment teams both past and present. They are also continue to wait for performances from the like of De Ligt and holding player Manuel Ugarte to prove that they were worth the investment made in the summer. De Ligt made a couple of important blocks here. Both from Palmer. Equally, he is not quick and looks immobile. Not a great combination. As for Ugarte – a £50m recruit from PSG – he was offered an opportunity to impress here and the most generous verdict we can deliver is that he was comfortably outshone and outplayed by Moises Caicedo and Romeo Lavia in that central area. Worth noting here that those two were brought to Chelsea in the summer of 2023. It has taken them until now to find any kind of form. Settling in can take time. Incoming manager Ruben Amorim has a huge task to transform the club's fortunes Enzo Fernandez (left) missed a huge chance to win the game for Chelsea at Old Trafford United deserved their point against Chelsea after producing an improved performance Equally both had Premier League experience to sustain them through fallow days, Caicedo at Brighton and Lavia at Southampton.   Indeed Liverpool coveted both. Ugarte does not have this and currently he does not look particularly suited to the cut and thrust of the English league. We shall see. Bruno Fernandes said after this game that he was among the many United players who owed Ten Hag an apology. He has already made his on the telephone and the United captain may have a point. On television, Roy Keane was quick to rush in. When isn’t he? Keane doesn’t really do nuance as an analyst, though, and it’s exactly this quality that Amorim will have to initially rely on when he starts work on November 11. The new United manager will know already what he is walking in to. United’s squad is not as poor as it sometimes looked under Ten Hag but it is far short of those working at clubs such as Manchester City, Arsenal and Liverpool. It is not at Chelsea’s level, either. Nevertheless, Amorim’s responsibility from the first moment will be to improve United quickly and fundamentally. This is a United squad and team that needs some coaching, some structure, some identity and something other than unpredictability and fallibility by which to recognise it. Romeo Lavia (left) is beginning to impress at Chelsea while Manuel Ugarte (right) is struggling Ten Hag oversaw his last game in charge against West Ham where United's players spurned goalscoring chances Amorim’s first significant transfer window remains eight months away. Opportunities in January are always limited. So the first stretch of his time in charge will very much be an examination of himself and his ability to impose his ideas on his players and build some kind of culture and belief system. At Chelsea Maresca has moved Chelsea forwards quickly. It’s been impressive and it can be done. But he said after this game that Chelsea’s squad excited him as soon as he looked down the list of names. Can Amorim really say the same about United? How many of them would be in his Fantasy Football team? In all likelihood, not a single one. Published by Associated Newspapers Ltd Part of the Daily Mail, The Mail on Sunday & Metro Media Group