Thank goodness for Hugo Lloris
This was a night when Tottenham Hotspur were indebted to their goalkeeper Hugo Lloris for ensuring that only those who watched the game knew just how abysmal the north London side were at Old Trafford.
Those who did not see the game might have just seen a 2-0 scoreline and assumed it was a tight encounter, won by a couple of clinical strikes. Far from it, the Spurs captain prevented that scoreline from being something closer to 6-0 or 7-0.
For Manchester United were so dominant that they unleashed 28 shots on Tottenham's goal, including 10 on target. They sent 19 of those efforts at goal in the first half alone and Lloris made five outstanding flying or reaction saves before half-time arrived to give the visitors some respite from the onslaught. The score was still 0-0 and that was purely down to the French World Cup winner.
READ MORE: Tottenham player ratings: Hugo Lloris superb but Romero, Bissouma, Hojbjerg, Kane and Son poor
As often happens in these type of games luck still plays its part and, other than Lloris' efforts, Spurs had not earned any. So when Fred's shot deflected off the leg of Ben Davies and past the helpless skipper it was entirely deserving to everyone but the goalkeeper.
There were plenty of factors at play as to why Tottenham were so poor on this trip to Manchester but first and foremost this was another example of the lack of belief the club has when it travels to big sides. These games are almost written off months before when the schedule is looked at.
Manchester City aside, against who Spurs have a strong record against in recent years, there seems to be very little belief that the north London side can handle what is to come when they step into enemy territory against the big six.
This lacklustre, deep-sitting performance at Old Trafford was very similar to the one at the Emirates Stadium at the start of the month and that's what will hurt the Tottenham fans who made the trip up to Manchester with a kick-off so late there were no trains back that evening.
Those who scheduled the fixture did not think about them and neither on the night did Spurs because this was a performance lacking in everything that makes an Antonio Conte team work and instead highlighting everything that can go wrong to make a Conte side look dull and negative.
The three foundations the Italian's teams are built on are hard work, repeatedly doing the simple things right and creativity stemming from the flanks.
Spurs were outworked from the first whistle, they struggled to string a series of passes to each other and wing-backs Ivan Perisic and Matt Doherty barely created a thing. On top of that all of Conte's big players shrunk within the confines of the grand old stadium.
It's difficult to even say that Conte's tactics were defensive because we never really got to see exactly what his plan was due to the low standard of everything Tottenham's players attempted to execute on the pitch.
"We have to be honest and United deserved to win and deserved to get three points," said Conte afterwards. "They started the game very well and created chances to score. In our side we didn't start the game and it was really difficult also because made a lot of mistakes, simple.
"For sure not a good game for us but I have to be honest and first of all, especially with my players, this was not the first time for us, despite the table being good but every time we played a high level game we struggle.
"We struggled against Chelsea because we drew after 92 minutes but Chelsea dominated the game and with Arsenal we lost and today against United we lost. For sure when the level is high, we are going to struggle.
"This means we have to continue to work to try to improve, to work on the pitch and to work outside the pitch and I think for sure because some times I listen that we are title contenders and I think we need time, in only 10 or 11 months, you cannot pass from ninth place to become the title contenders a year after, especially when you finish 20 points less than the monsters in England.
"We don’t forget last season United failed the season, otherwise United has to stay for the story always in Champions League. On our side I repeat we need to be disappointed because you can lose, you can lose this time of game but in the same time we have to show much more because I think we can do much better than today."
What a difference a couple of days makes. On Monday Conte said he was looking forward to this test at Old Trafford because it would show him where his team was. It did, just not in the way anybody wanted, not least the magnificent travelling Spurs fans who did not deserve what they were served up.
Big players shrinking and formation woes
One thing is almost inevitable in football. Whenever the fans and media are in unison over a formation that a manager needs to use, the moment that formation is actually given a real go it fails badly.
Similar happened back when everybody wanted to see a midfield three of Pierre-Emile Hojbjerg, Tanguy Ndombele and Giovani Lo Celso used together. That happened and it stank the place out in European matches when instead the combined talent of those three players should have run the show.
This time around it was the 3-5-2 called for while Conte will point out that the 3-4-3 took Tottenham into fourth place in the Premier League last season and has them sitting in third this season.
The truth is that both the 3-4-3 and 3-5-2 are needed for Spurs to succeed and have tactical flexibility from match to match and within games. Conte had bluffed before the game that he was going to use the 3-4-3 on the day but ended up using the latter. Other than a bright opening five to 10 minutes, the tactical 'surprise' did nothing.
Any formation requires the players within it to do the most simple of things and this is where Spurs fell horribly short at Old Trafford, with key players who have played in the biggest games of all shrinking away like unready debutants.
When football.london asked Conte why his players look like they fear taking on the big sides, he said: "You know that in this type of game I think you need to arrive and don't make big mistakes and you need to arrive with a great concentration and with great focus ready.
"You need to arrive with a war inside of you, a sporting war, you need to arrive in this way with the war inside of you ready to fight a war and you have to know that at the end of the game you die or your opponent dies. I think today from the start not much under this aspect."
At the back, Eric Dier put in a display full of mistakes, bungled attempts to clear the ball and being caught of position. He set out his stall early on by making a mess of a basic clearance and instead slicing the ball a couple of inches into the path of United's rampaging attack.
At 28, the England defender needed to be the leader in that backline but he looked nervous throughout, albeit not helped by two powerful shots to the face in the first half.
Alongside him Cristian Romero is meant to be the defender who can pass or surge past the press but he was poor in possession and tried to make up for it with lunging moments that only showcased the reckless edge to his game that has not been entirely curbed.
Ben Davies was the most composed of the back three with his defending but struggled with his passing, with the lowest pass success rate of the three defenders at just 76.8% as he tried to get things moving up the pitch. He was unfortunate to deflect Fred's shot inside the left-hand post, but it's clear Clement Lenglet's passing ability would have been useful against the United press.
Ahead of the back three the midfield, despite being a trio, were as generous a set of visitors as United could hope for.
Yves Bissouma did his chances of making the 3-5-2 a regular starting formation very little good at all with a display full of heavy touches and ponderous moments with the ball.
Pierre-Emile Hojbjerg has arguably been Spurs' player of the season so far but he was running around like a headless chicken at times, unsure what to do with the ball and when to use it and he handed the initiative to the opposition on a number of occasions. He had three key moments of bad control in attacking situations, handing the ball to United.
The Dane was also all over the place for United's second goal as the ball ended up being helped down the pitch with missed challenges, clearances and tackles that only rebounded the ball into home players' paths before Bruno Fernandes gratefully curled it home.
Even the usually composed Rodrigo Bentancur was sloppy and hesitant with his passing. His 85.4% passing success rate was the lowest of the midfield three by some distance.
Having three midfielders in the centre of the pitch should free up the Uruguayan and Hojbjerg to support the attack, as they did to lethal effect against Everton late in the game, but they used the ball so poorly on Wednesday night that they rendered themselves redundant.
At one point Conte grew so frustrated with Bentancur that those who speak Italian heard him shout from his technical area at the midfielder "Pass the ball, pass the ball" followed by a word that translated into English rhymes with "thickhead". The Uruguay international did not hold back in his response either from the pitch. Bentancur had only been raving about Conte's motivational powers in the week. This was presumably not what he meant.
Conte will be criticised for setting up his players in a defensive compact shape to counter, but that block of six players in the back and centre of the pitch ensured the ball would rarely be used as he intended it.
The Italian gave Christian Eriksen a big hug before the game as they chatted when walking towards the dugouts. Conte admitted before the encounter that he had wanted the Dane to return to the club and it's a frustrating thought to imagine what that midfield three would have been like with Eriksen in it as he was in Conte's title-winning Inter side.
Woeful wing-backs and the big two go missing
Manchester United were everything going forward that Tottenham were not. Erik ten Hag, a strong contender to take over as Spurs boss before Nuno Espirito Santo's brief and ill-fated spell in the hotseat, had his team playing with the verve, hunger and incisive play that the travelling fans dream of this season.
For while the Spurs attackers did not see enough of the ball what they did with it when they got it needed to be on point. It was far from that.
Despite a couple of wonderful early crossfield passes into the path of Matt Doherty, Harry Kane's use of the ball afterwards when he got it was woeful. His 59.1% pass success rate was the lowest on the pitch by a long, long way apart from United goalkeeper David De Gea's 53.1%.
Kane has the quality to take these sort of matches by the scruff of the neck with his ability to create, use his strength and score, but as the game wore on, aside from a couple of shots, he just faded into the background.
Like Hojbjerg, Kane had three key moments of bad control in attacking situations, giving the ball to United, while Son Heung-min had two such moments.
Son had a far better passing success rate, 80.8%, and played two key passes to Kane's one, but the South Korean was also anonymous for long periods. Unusually for him he didn't make a single dribble with the ball while Kane mustered only a couple of attempts.
Son is rarely one to challenge for headers but even he will be disappointed when he watches United's goal back for his lack of desire to at least contest the header that sent the hosts up the pitch. It was a moment that summed up many of the Tottenham players' performances, not just his own.
Then there were the wing-backs, the players who needed to provide Son and Kane with the ammunition they required to fire.
Doherty started the game brightly and at times threatened to get into good positions, including cutting inside on to a Kane pass before curling a left-footed shot wide of the far post.
He did make three successful tackles, more than anyone else in the Spurs team, but the Irishman did not do enough after a promising display against Everton and the timing is not good for him, with Emerson Royal now free from suspension for the match against Newcastle United.
It will be a test of Conte's belief in Doherty as to whether he sticks with the Republic of Ireland international or freshens things up with the reinstating of Emerson, a move that would not prove popular with a number of the Spurs fanbase.
On the other side, despite Conte's words to the contrary after the Everton match, Ivan Perisic is not looking like the raiding wing-back he was under the Italian in that Serie A title-winning season at Inter Milan.
The 33-year-old Croatian had some moments when he got down the left-hand side but on the whole he was wasteful. He slung in seven crosses with only one reaching a Spurs player, had a pass success rate of only 78.1% compared to Doherty's 84.4 and he gave the ball away twice with poor touches.
Ryan Sessegnon was unfortunate to not get a start at Old Trafford, particularly as a player Conte has trusted in big matches and it's a trust that has always been repaid with good performances. When Sessegnon did come on he was used awkwardly on the right-hand side to allow Perisic to remain on the left.
Djed Spence got a handful more minutes at the end of the game and at least this time touched the ball with one driving run into the United box before attempting, unsuccessfully, to pull the ball back.
Conte will be mulling over freshening up his wing-backs for Sunday's match at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium but how far he goes remains to be seen. Whatever happens, the attacking unit needs to be far better against Newcastle.
Conte's not so subtle message to Daniel Levy
Mrs Potts, the teapot in Beauty and the Beast, once sang about a 'tale as old as time'. She might as well have been singing about football managers blaming everyone but themselves after a defeat.
After saying his players continue to struggle in the big games, Antonio Conte turned his attentions to the club and sent a not too deeply hidden message about the past and upcoming transfer windows.
"We can improve, we need to continue to work and for sure it is right with the club also to analyse very well why when we are going to play this type of game where the level is very high we are struggling," he said. "I repeat we can work a lot on the pitch but we need to continue to work in many aspects."
Conte's substitutions to try to change the game never really came. He just watched on with frustration from the sideline, occasionally even going up to the brick-built Old Trafford dugout to sit down - an unusual sight for the normally frantic Italian on the touchline.
When the changes did eventually arrive, the Spurs head coach dumped five players on to the pitch within the final 10 minutes in moves that appeared as much to take off key players before they got injured as to give some minutes to young players, with little real belief that the alterations would be game-changing.
When football.london asked him why he had left it so late to attempt to change the course of the game, Conte simply pointed to his squad.
"The substitutions today with Richarlison and Kulusevski out with injuries were really difficult to try to change the game also because Lucas Moura, you know very well, is recovering from an injury with his tendon," he said.
"We are trying to keep him in balance, and for this reason, we are also going during the training sessions to bring him in the best physical condition but not to push him a lot because he took risks like two weeks ago to stop himself again.
"The other solution to the bench today was we played with three midfielders because we had only the two strikers, and then you know this type of game, we have many young players that this game is difficult for all players and for the young players much more difficult."
His answers were loaded with broadsides at the powers that be at the club, making it clear that just two injuries had prevented him from having a squad strong enough to win this match. Again this was not in keeping with his pre-match thoughts, when he had been relishing the test ahead.
Conte is correct about the age of his bench which contained 21-year-old Bryan Gil, three 22-year-olds in Sessegnon, Spence and Oliver Skipp as well as 23-year-old Japhet Tanganga, meaning more than half of the players were young ones.
However, none of the above excuses the performance at Old Trafford or the fact that a very strong team of players, a large number to be found among the best in the Premier League, were outworked and outfought and Conte was tactically outthought by Ten Hag as well with United flooding around Spurs' ranks at every moment.
There is no doubt that Conte has improved Spurs since he arrived in November, the points haul since then demonstrates that but the narrative he creates himself that he always needs better players looms almost as large during his career as the trophies he has won.
Look through the years at every club the Italian has worked at and alongside the silverware and the fantastic things he has achieved on the training ground with so many players are the quotes that eventually appear where he has asked for better players or better options.
The task at Tottenham is a tougher one that any he has taken on in the past decade in terms of it being a giant that has been sleeping for many more years than those he has taken the helm of in England and Italy.
While no manager really wants to speak to the media after a defeat, Conte will have particularly hated the press conference room he walked into at Old Trafford.
Ten Hag had already been in and, with an understandably buoyant mood, answered questions aplenty about his team and swerved a couple on Cristiano Ronaldo, who once again showed his delight in his team-mates' impressive performance by walking down the tunnel before the full time whistle.
When Conte entered the room afterwards, most journalists - in there to cover the home team - appeared disinterested, already writing up their copy from Ten Hag's quotes and their reports on his side.
The Spurs boss was asked the standard opening question about his team's performance before football.london quizzed him about his team looking scared and the very late use of players from the bench.
This reporter then paused to allow others to take their turn and ask questions but nobody did, meaning the press conference was quickly and suddenly wrapped up.
Conte had not been the centre of attention as he often is. Instead most in the room barely looked up to acknowledge that he had even entered it. While one of the smaller things on his mind on Wednesday evening, it will not have gone unnoticed that he was considered small fry on this occasion and he will not have liked it.
However, the Spurs boss does not help this dynamic, constantly referring to the club's rivals as 'monsters' and ensuring that everyone knows the north London outfit's achievement in finishing fourth last season was a miracle.
For Tottenham fans that witnessed Mauricio Pochettino take the club to three consecutive top three finishes, including one second place spot, before a top four finish and appearance in the Champions League final, they are not going to be sold on this narrative of plucky little Spurs fighting against the big boys.
That is particularly when the club has backed Conte in his first two transfer windows with nine new signings that come to a not inconsiderate total when all is totalled up and also the Kulusevski deal becomes permanent.
The question of course is whether Conte has been backed enough and that is where the Italian will continue to push and prod the club to get what he feels is closer to what he needs. He does not want to aim for those top four finishes, he wants the title but to do so would require more investment and intelligent signings for the now to provide more consistency across matches.
Spurs will also look at results like Wednesday night though and ask why it was such a difficult objective for their club to go to Old Trafford and pick up a point or more as Newcastle did days earlier and Brighton and Manchester City have also done since the season began.
Ten Hag's football blueprint is beginning to be implemented now but Old Trafford has not been a fortress this season as the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium has and United do remain below Spurs in the table.
Tottenham now have a run of games in which, Liverpool aside, that they will be favourites to win, starting with the visit of Newcastle on Sunday and Sporting on Wednesday before trips to Newcastle, Marseille, that Liverpool game and matches against Nottingham Forest in the Carabao Cup and Leeds United at home in the Premier League before the World Cup break arrives.
Barring a collapse in the coming weeks, Spurs should be in a strong position when the Premier League pauses for the winter and if they do what they can on paper then they will likely be in the top four when football resumes.
The winter will bring a time to regroup and for Conte and Tottenham to decide what comes next. Conte's latest words felt like yet another not so subtle message to chairman Daniel Levy and the Italian will want more off the pitch and the club and the fans will want more to enjoy on it.
Tottenham need to rid themselves of this fear factor against the 'monsters' that other teams appear to vanquish and regularly pick up points against.
Conte was named fourth among the top 50 coaches in the world in FourFourTwo this week and he showed with a weaker Spurs squad last season what he can get out of players. Tottenham are far better though than he sometimes makes out and its down to him to use his undoubted ability to squeeze the best out of the players.
Levy must ensure funds go towards further key arrivals in January for a strong second half to the season, but Conte for his part must also instil a belief out loud in his players that they do not need that. The public message to the club does not always have to reflect the private one because the public one allows for excuses.
Conte is happy and settled at Tottenham but he is also an emotional man. Nights like the one at Old Trafford need to serve as a lesson to everyone, including him, rather than a vessel to keep hammering home a long and consistent message spouted throughout his career. New arrivals are needed but the Italian is far better than even he's giving himself credit for.
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