United 3 Spurs 0

two minutes, before Tom Cleverley's low side-footed effort drew a fantastic finger-tip save from Brad Friedel as United ramped up the early pressure.

Spurs gradually gained a foothold, although failed to test David De Gea on his competitive home debut until the 21st minute when Gareth Bale's tame shot was fielded easily by the Spaniard down by his near post.

At the other end, Nani's pace and trickery was causing plenty of problems for both Spurs full-backs and Young went close with a clever looping header just before the half-hour mark. De Gea's next examinations came when Nico Kranjcar and then Rafael van der Vaart blasted efforts at goal from the edge of the area. He passed with flying colours, on both occasions showing strong, safe hands. Just as impressive was the Spaniard's composure with the ball at his feet. On numerous occasions, with Tottenham forwards bearing down on him at speed, he kept his cool and picked out red shirts with accurate Edwin-esque distribution.

Despite both sides playing entertaining football at a good tempo and regularly swapping possession (MU 48% TH 52%) and goal attempts (MU 7 TH 8) in the first 45 minutes, the match remained scoreless as the teams trotted down the tunnel.

Friedel, diving down to his right, denied Young shortly after the interval before making an equally impressive double-save to keep out left-footed efforts from Anderson and Rooney.