3  Eric BAILLY
  4  Phil JONES
12  Chris SMALLING

25  Antonio VALENCIA     
21  Ander HERRERA
31  Nemanja MATIC
18  Ashley YOUNG  (36  Matteo DARMIAN  90+3)

22  Henrik MKHITARYAN  (14  Jesse LINGARD  65)

19  Marcus RASHFORD  (11  Anthony MARTIAL  70  )
  9  Romelu LUKAKU

Unused subs: 
20  Sergio ROMERO
17  Daley BLIND
39  Scott McTOMINAY
  8  Juan MATA

15  Eric DIER
  4  Toby ALDERWEIRELD
  5  Jan VERTONGHEN

24  Serge AURIER
17  Moussa SISSOKO  (19  Mousa DEMBELE  62)
29  Harry WINKS
23  Christian ERIKSEN
33  Ben DAVIES

20  DELE Alli

  7  Heung-Min SON  (18  Fernando LLORENTE  62)

Unused subs: 
13  Michel VORM
16  Kieran TRIPPIER
  6  Davinson SANCHEZ
  3  Danny ROSE
14  Georges-Kevin N'KOUDOU
 

Tottenham lost at Old Trafford by the only goal of the game for the third season running, but they played well, without their man striker Harry Kane, but failed to .

Lukaku got up the left in the second minute and crossed low for Rashford, but Lloris cut it out before it reached and the United man had tripped Davies before he got there and then Young made a good run inside the box wide on the left, but his cross was pulled back behind everyone. When Lloris kicked out and the ball came straight back in the tenth minute, Lukaku put the ball in to Rashford on the edge of the box, Dier made a very well timed tackle, but the ball ran loose and came back to Lukaku, but his shot went way off target at ninety degrees to the goal !

Tottenham's first effort on goal was a dribbler of a shot from Aurier 25 yards out, but when United went forward, Sissoko brought down Mkhitaryan, who got to the ball first and Rashford tried a shot form 30 yards out that Lloris dived right to push wide.  For the first fifteen minutes, Spurs had been chasing the game and had not been able to string passes together, but they started to hold the ball a bit more and move it further upfield. Neither side was making
their passes tell and play kept changing hands making the play a little staccato. There was an effort from Sissoko, when Davies found him in acres of space but his low drive was weak, which couldn't be said of Toby's shot from the right, but his 20 yard right footer hit the side netting. Working the ball down the
right, Moussa didn't do as well as he should have done with his cross.

Spurs were starting to press and almost capitalised when Matic headed back to de Gea, which didn't get there and Son and Dele closed down, but a defender hacked it away. They came even closer after a good passing movement ended with Davies crossing into the box, with de Gea comfortably underneath it.  However, he bumped into Jones and dropped the ball. Dele seized on it, but with his back to goal, laid it back to Sissoko, but he skied his shot.

Ashley Young let people know he was on the pitch by trying to start a confrontation after being challenged in the air by Aurier and then facing up to Sissoko and then Dele. He was trying to wind them up, but failed, as he does with much of his efforts. Spurs were finding Aurier on the right and Jan and
Ben on the left getting into some good positions. But it was a breakdown in a United attack that saw Dele put away on the left, but as he came inside the box, he tried to slide a soft pass through the box to Son at the far post, but it didn't have enough pace on it.

Dele Alli was coming in for some treatment, getting clattered late by Valencia and then dragged down by Bailly, but the referee was not punishing the fouls by the United players. Spurs kept passing the ball and Aurier got in behind Young and had his shot deflected over. From the corner, Dier's header was blocked and popped up for him again, but he sliced his volley softly up into the keeper's arms.

The teams trooped off in the rain at half-time with nobody troubling the scorers. United came out a bit more positive in the second half, with Young putting a low ball in to the near post but Lloris grabbed it. Hugo didn't grab Mkhitaryan's shot eight minutes into the half, spilling it right in front of goal, but Ben Davies saved the situation with a last ditch clearance. A minute later, Mkhitaryan got free on the left and his low ball into the near post was somehow deflected away off the inside of Hugo's right thigh.

Spurs needed to gain some possession to calm the game down, but the ball kept coming back towards their goal, helped by the officials giving United a corner when the ball hadn't totally crossed the line. A double change by Pochettino saw Llorente replace Son and Mousa come on in place of Moussa. And it was Dembele, who closed down Valencia as he ran onto a cleared corner that put him off as his shot just cleared the bar from the edge of the box.

Valencia got a yellow card for trying to win a penalty badly by throwing himself to the ground when nochallenge came in. Spurs had a good passage of passing that took them to the edge of the United box, but had to run back and engineered a shooting chance for Eriksen, but it rose over the bar. Christian  did better in the 77th minute, when Tottenham worked the ball out of the back and Eriksen drifted a ball past the last United man for Dele to run onto it, but he couldn't get the right contact on it to nudge it past de Gea into the net, only putting it a foot wide. United got closer in the 79th minute, when Lingard's looping cross saw Lukaku jump above a grounded Alderweireld and crash a header against the foot of Lloris' left hand post. Matic then tried a long range effort, but it showed how fortunate his strike in last season's semi-final was, because this time it ended up high in the crowd.

Spurs looked to get in behind United, but Aurier was offside and then from that the home side got Martial away on the left, latching onto Lukaku's header and the striker got behind Dier and scuffed a shot past Lloris to give United the lead. It was route one and Spurs were too easily undone.

Trying to get back into the game, Eriksen had a shot blocked and Dele looked to have Bailly's arm around his neck as he went to head Aurier's cross. Young screamed like a small child when tackled by Dele trying to get a card for the Spurs midfielder, as this seemed to be his prime purpose in the game. Tottenham's cause wasn't helped by Hugo kicking the ball straight into touch, something he had done for a lot of the game. We really need him to hoof it as far downfield as possible if he can't find a Spurs player with his passes.

A late free kick was hoisted into the box and cleared, with Lingard running from inside his own half through with only Lloris to beat, but Eriksen's chasing back put him off and the United forward shot way over the top. Three minutes of added time saw a free-kick given against Llorente for a shove, with Bailly failing to be punished for a blatant block on Dembele to the edge of the box.

The game was not a classic and Spurs were made to pay for one moment of lost concentration, but United maintained their 100% home record and five games without a goal conceded. Without Kane, the side acquitted themselves well, managing to keep United to a few chances and then had a handful of chances themselves, but a draw would probably have been the right result on the balance of play.

There was a nervy first quarter of an hour, but after that Tottenham started to control the game with some good passing and possession football.  The failure to create a lot of chances was partially down to a lack of a killer final pass and partly down to United getting a lot of players back behind the ball as soon as they lost it.  Mourinho's tactics didn't exactly shine the genius light on him, but he won't care as they were three points better off at the end.

Matt Segal