Man United and Fulham succumb to The Fear as Craven Cottage six-pointer ends all square

Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration.

And afeared Man United’s scarcely deserved 1-1 draw at timid, tepid Fulham was a game stalked by fear. The contrast with United’s cross-city rivals is stark; we may worry about City being just a bit too carefree, but it’s so much better than… whatever this sh*t is.

Both teams seemed vaguely aware that the other was there for the taking today. Both, though, were more powerfully aware that they themselves were. The fear of what might happen to them outweighed for both the desire to explore what they themselves might be able to do to such visibly frit opposition.

The outcome was a game of desperately low quality played at a funereal pace, lest an error creep in. It was destined for a goalless draw that both sides deserved to lose to a late sickener just for their sheer lack of will.

It was a game where a goal was never going to be scored, but one could always happen due to the whims of an uncaring universe. And also incompetence. Let’s not forget that.

United produced just enough incompetence to invite calamity. Senne Lammens’ inexplicable decision to save Calvin Bassey’s 18-yard effort with his feet was followed by a dreadful touch from Lisandro Martinez under no pressure, which Lammens somehow failed to keep out.

It cannot be stressed enough that from the moment the ball left Bassey’s boot, no Fulham player intervened in any way to a situation of chaos entirely of United’s own manufacture.

You always know an own goal is a good one when you find yourself wondering who it should actually be credited to. Lammens got the last, pitiful, futile touch. Logic therefore tells you he should get the ‘credit’. Vibes say it’s Martinez’s. Both were hugely, pointlessly and unnecessarily at fault.

That goal, as goals are wont to do, changed the game. United’s response was actually decent, making a mockery of the dread with which they approached the first hour against a team who came into this game with a single point from their opening four games of the season, including a pair of 3-2 defeats here that highlighted their many vulnerabilities.

Bernd Leno had to be at his best diving to his right and left to keep Fulham’s lead intact. Just as it seemed they had done enough to secure all three points, United found their equaliser.

It having by now been clearly established that the only routes to goal here were rank incompetence or sheer dumb luck, United opted for the latter. The unpassable Leno was completely undone as a wicked Joachim Andersen sent a tame Matheus Cunha effort spinning away from him to roll forlornly into the goal.

Neither side could find a late winner, because of course they couldn’t.

In a drab game between two struggling sides, the only other source of entertainment across the 90 minutes was an understandably rattled Gary Neville desperately trying to convince himself there might be a case for United being awarded a penalty for a ball hammered into Bassey’s arms from a gnat’s * hair away, and Peter Drury going full Home Alone when describing a tame, easily saved effort on goal from Fulham substitute Kevin.

A point apiece, and the unconvincing manner in which each team claimed it, doesn’t really do a great deal for either side’s worrying start to the season. The pressure will ease little on either Michael Carrick or Alvaro Arbeloa, who came into the weekend first and second in the Premier League Sack Race, as a result of this spectacle.

Whether either side is in full cracked-badge crisis is perhaps still too early to say, but certainly neither made a compelling move away from that precipice ahead of an interminable international break.

Waiting on the other side of that for United are Spurs. Carrick (if indeed he is still manager by then) simply cannot allow his side to be so timid again in a fixture that has so many of the same qualities as this one, just with inevitably greater attention.

In keeping with the long-settled truth that whatever happens in football the joke is somehow always on Spurs, this miserable game with its two miserable performances produced a result that sends silly old Tottenham very deservedly to the foot of the Premier League table, where they will remain for at least the next three weeks and very probably longer.

The only consolation for Roberto De Zerbi and co is that, really, any time two of your relegation rivals share the points it can’t be all bad.